Skyrim: Usurpers
by Accursius
Summary: Accompany the Black Swordsman as he is being torn from his crusade against the God Hand only to find himself in Skyrim at the time of prophecies. He will carve himself a path through this strange, foreign land, and its heroes may just hold the salvation Guts is desperately searching for. But at the same time his soul may be damned all over again.
1. Of Ink and Others

**Prologue:**

 **Of Ink and Others**

* * *

 _"In this world, some people are like keys that move the world and exist having no connection to the social hierarchy established by man."_

-Berserk

* * *

Snuggled between the snowy peaks of the Eldersblood and Skyborn Mountains in Skyrim´s centre, Bromjunaar, the ancient ruins turned city had become an iconic image of the cold land and Nordic culture as they majestically overlooked the vast marshes of the Hjaal which extended all the way to the misty Sea of Ghosts. On first thought the local jarl´s palace, Sodsekonahriik, appeared to be far too extravagant for a mere petty king who ruled the mostly uninhabitable Hjaalmarch. Even if one took into considered that the city, sitting on a wide plateau through which the Old Road connected in a nearly straight line Morthal, Bromjunaar, Silent Moons Holdfast, Whiterun, Bleackfalls, Riverwood, Helgen and Fort Neugrad to the Pale Pass in Hrothgar hold´s south and to Cyrodiil beyond that, the riches displayed seemed surprising. Only when one knew the place´s legendary history and cultural importance could visitors understand why it was named in the same sentence as the famous Dragonsreach, the fabled Palace of Kings in Windhelm, or the iconic Blue Palace built in Cyrodiilic fashion.

The main hall´s ancient black ironwood gate, banded in dark iron and gold, with inlays depicting abstract but vivid images from the city´s history and lore, opened before him to reveal a truly massive hall of black porphyry monoliths, carved with the grotesque idols the Nords loved so much, from dragons to leering, long tresses bearing women. Between the various murals and stone monuments, hawk or perhaps eagle heads forged from dark iron leered down from the walls, holding burning coals in their beaks.

The great mead-hall of Bromjunaar was truly ... breathtaking.

The whole room was built akin to the inside of a ribcage with stone arches, carved in the manner of large serpents, imitating the ribs. Each of their sculpted gaping heads was supporting a metal bowl with burning coals.

From above banners hung down from the ceiling and arches, glyphs of the scratch-script of the winged-sky-lizards decorating them. Their meaning unknown to him. While multiple alcoves in the walls lead to adjacent rooms or simply served as a place to exhibit the riches and hunting trophies of the local Jarl, among them elk antlers, mammoth skulls and tusks, bear-, wolf-pelts. Though he was skeptic if those pieces had truly been gained by the Jarl Konahriik himself. But in the far back of the hall, if he squinted, his heart beat faster at the sight of what he assumes to be carriage-sized dragon skulls near the throne. The jarl himself was absent, as was usual if the words of the traders he questioned as he planned his trip were to be believed.

Though the seating area itself was well illuminated, the hall, fit to feast an army, seemed to be unable to rid itself of the perpetual gloom under its ceiling. This was only natural, as the white marble of the table-, short bench surfaces and few high seats were nearly the only light color among the dark stone and wood, from which a second floor had been built above the mammoth sized mead barrels on both sides of the room, making up the building. The whole scenario was similar to a hibernating bear´s cave, blindingly white on the outside and on the inside so dark one believed to be in need of artificial light. It served to create an eerie atmosphere, as the light never quite reached the ceiling, only half shadowed stares of predators without number greeted you when looking into the far corners. As if a group of demons was looking onto a gathering of humans in the darkness of a moonless night.

Looking back to the gates, from among the scurrying mass of serving wenches and guests, the visitor saw the Law-Thane enter through the thick with bas-relief gates. The very same Nord warrior who had previously given him directions through the maze of streets. He descend the double flight of brazier-lit stairs to rip and tear a leg from the bristleback rotating on a spit hanging between two animal statues and over one of the large hearths which spread their heat and the smell of roasting meat to the tables and benches on either side. Unsuccessful, the hulking Nord gave up on taking his piece off neatly like that and instead made us of the sawing-backside of his dagger to sever bone before striding between the rows of the feasting populace. In here one could hardly believe that Bromjunaar was nearly as much of a ghost city as most of the other cities of Skyrim had become. Years of continuous strife and the discovery of new lands and had thinned out the populace.

The lizard man trudged forward into the throng of festivities. He searched for a quiet corner where he would be able to go after his business without others infringing on him and his guest. Tucking his bandolier closer, rather than thieves he feared the rowdy clientele would fail to see him, being a head shorter than them, and break his fragile instruments of trade when running into him in careless drunk ravings.

Around him the steady rumble of voices quieted as a hall-skald, which was how the northern courts called their bards and minstrels, worked his throat, singing praise to some and heaping shame upon the heads of others to the amusement of the feasting locals.

He passed by comfortable stone benches covered with furs standing on both sides of marble tables where wherever someone was seated they were laden with food and drink, big metal bowls standing on abstract animals sculptures, some smoking, others filled with cold wines or meat, roaring hearths, some leading up to chimneys on which hunting trophies were displayed in the flickering twilight.

* * *

His guest arrived not long after he had secure himself two seats. Unnoticed by the other guests, and even himself, she had strolled out from the inner depths of the palace and appeared some scant few dozen feet before him. Disregarding her life spanning across millennia, she appeared almost ephemeral and bore the ageless features of a unblemished Daedric Seducer. She wasn´t bony, but very slim, almost skinny but of great beauty. She possessed the delicate features of a Altmeri porcelain doll, though she was taller than most men, and the straight black hair, which fell down over her back and beyond like a glossy black waterfall, reinforced this portrayal. The black curtain only accentuated the large, long lashed eyes of the palest blue and her alabaster skin.

The satin of her flowing, midnight blue gown hugged the curves of her body, yet he failed to see it move with her steps, as if she was gliding across the floor rather than walking.

The fire´s light danced across a long belt made of interconnected gold plates and studded with precious stones was wrapped around her body, its end left trailing down her legs and the pearls in the short cape raven feathers gleamed like stars in the night sky of Elsweyr. All in all far too cold for any sensible or living creature, considering the hold´s chilly climate.

"Thank you for indulging me on my requesst, milady. I´m Deep-His-Inks, a scribe from the Gwylim University."

The Argonian traveler's raspy voice greeted the living legend as she seated herself across from him. At his greeting the nearest humans threw glances at her and surreptitiously moved away. For a moment the march-dweller was angry at himself for greeting her so loudly, only the knowledge that with the chill she had brought along she couldn´t have hidden herself anyway and that she seemed unbothered, calmed his nerves. And indeed she paid them hardly any mind at all, this far south her kind were rarely seen and even rarer still did they appear as allies to the Nords.

The distinct pungent odor of wet reptile scales and leather wafted over from across the table, but as she knew he would have had to fight with others over her seat she choose to ignore it. For beyond the white marble of the table, and the Argonian himself, whose yellow head feathers rose and lowered themselves in same rhythm that the sweltering hearth-fire flared wildly. She saw the act of kindness in reserving her a place far from it.

"Well, ..." She acknowledged him in a sultry tone, yet her voice did not match her expression for she wore no hint of a smile. "...how could I refuse? It´s rare enough these days to find a Saxheel of the swamps of your nation, but to find a foreign chronicler willing to interview me about the living legends of the Nords... Perhaps it shouldn´t be so surprising. For the Nords the songs and eddas recited by the skalds are usually enough, , but folk from the Heartland always tried to bring some semblance of order into the haberdashery of Nord-myths. ..."

A lavishly decorated drinking horn is placed before the ancient being by a serving wench and she lead it to her lips with nary a look inside.

"... No matter."

Like a big cat she reclines in her seat, the drinking horn clasped in gloved hands, the golden, claw like tips and the carved runic ring distinguishing themselves from the black leather and her eyelids narrowing above cold blue eyes bright as stars.

"What brings about your sudden curiosity, Deep-In-His-Ink?"

Attempting to loosen his tongue by sipping southern wine from a carved bone cup, the Argonian might dabble in magic but is nowhere near skilled enough in the school of illusion to boost his own courage, thus the alcohol, Deep-In-His-Ink attempts to divert his attention from the small rivulet of pearly, distilled mortal essence dropping down her chin, which had probably been ´donated´ from the local prisons, and instead concentrated on his goal. Shifting slightly as if uncomfortable on his bench he fumbles for appropriate words.

"Milady, surely you will acquiesce that a legend like your friend, the high honored Stormcrown should be remembered for all eternity, especially considering how she shaped the 4th Era in Tamriel and beyond. To consider what preciousss deeds and knowledge would be lost to the violent times of history if all that we will have remember her by her are songs and poems ... essspecially ass the Nords tend to change their contents with every retelling!"

He pauses shortly, partly to catch his breath and let his interviewee come to the same conclusion as himself, for now, judging by the ancient woman´s pensive face, ghost like in the shadows of her raven hair, everything went as he envisioned and thus he continued with his rehearsed speech.

"I wouldn´t normally dream of bothering you with my inquiries, but sadly hardly any written records exist or they are kept from my sight under the pretext of secrecy! Only the barest information was offered me by the College of Winterhold, about their own colleague and competitor no less! The depths of Bromjunaar remain closed to me by orders of Konahriik himself. Milady, do you see my predicament?" He implored her. "For some reason no biography nor trustworthy accounts of the heroes who shaped the 4th Era exists! Naturally if I would go out and asks some random stranger he will tell me stories about how the Harbinger of the Companions brought back some treasured family heirloom in his grandfather´s generation, stories of glorious battles and other tales without number, but no one knows of the reasons behind her actions! And this, milady, brings about my current dilemma,..."

With its progression, his speech becomes more and more harried, fearing nothing more than to lose her attention due to the long-windedness of it.

"... asss one of their few still living contemporaries, I implore you to bestow your memories upon this unworthy servant of yours who with all my heart wishes to immortalize your friends legend in their entirety for all the world and beyond!"

His listener smiled slightly, giving him a glimpse of perfectly white and wickedly sharp teeth and he wondered just how close she would need to be to him to freeze his blood with her breath. He died a thousand deaths as her eyes closed for a moment, as if in remembrance, but he couldn´t know if she dwelled in good or bad memories.

"Ahahahahaha! You certainly have a dream set out for you. Your ambition, it strikes me as enough to even have her attention grasped by it."

Another swig, another droplet of some poor fellow´s life, though now Deep-In-His-Ink judged it only appropriate to bring it to her knowledge by pointing at his own chin and if only to keep her from glancing at his writing tools of rather poor quality. Absentmindedly, the oldest being in the mead hall licked it away with her dark tongue, wetting her lips, filled with false life.

"You realize, I did not accompany them on all their quests and old Neloth still lived last I checked?"

"Naturally I tried to get in contact with the House Telvanni, but they were even less forthcoming than others. They didn´t even grace me with an anssswer, wanting to have nothing to do with a marsh-dweller! ... I do not ask you for information unknown to you and am well aware that to acquire a complete account of her life I will still have to do further research. Yet I hope you may bestow me with your knowledge of them, so I may humbly transmit it for future generations with mine quill and ink."

"Ahahahahahahahahahaha!"

Her laughter held an almost playful tone but lacked any mirth at all. A dry, joyless exclamation of amusement, as if one had rehearsed a lake´s sheet of ice cracking sounds and tried to sell that as music.

Enthralling eyes of molten frost captured his, pinning him down on his seat and making his clawed hand grip onto the table´s stone. In the back of his mind he berated himself for having been too greedy to have bought a trinket enchanted to shield him against such subtle sorcery from the shop just down the stairs in the lower district.

"So you think yourself adequate? I mean, to write the sole complete account of their lives."

A expectant pause followed her mocking words. The green scaled Argonian, unsure what to answer and if at all, he never knew with women of any race, remained silent with half-opened mouth and his respiration quickening. When every human would have broken out in sweat, he only had his tongue dart from and thro.

"Well... Where to begin?" The cold being took pity on him. "Sit quietly now, keep your feather sharp, marsh-dweller, and listen, for the story I tell you is a story spanning ages."

"But about what is it, Milady? The Civil War? Dragons? Foreign lands or Oblivions wastes?"

The reptilian scribe jolted in sudden happiness as his tenseness melted away.

The noble woman looked shrewdly at him, it was between a look telling him how endearing she found his curiosity and how she would judge a fine "beverage" before actually starting to drink.

"Soon you may see the value in the songs, the lessons that were woven throughout their lives for the generations to uncover. The root of mystery you yearn for, may not be found within my words, but its branches will. Just listen, let the story take root in your heart. So you may uncover the deeper meanings, so you may uncover the central spire of the wheel according to which all of our lives, both mortal and immortal, turn. May you learn as much as I did from their deeds."

 **tbc**

* * *

 **AN: those two are my narrators and the mention of Bromjunaar is a small hint as to how Skyrim will develop in my fanfiction. I also hinted at a sequel I´m planning, and incorporating and planing such is the reason I posted nothing for so long - my apologies!**


	2. Promise of an End to the Struggle

A Berserk/Skyrim crossover scenario: starts when the count summons the 5 God Hand in his desperation.

* * *

 **Fate/Promise of an End to the Struggle**

* * *

...

"Just one word. Just say, _you´ll give your daughter as a sacrifice_..."

The fat cockroach sticking to a wall trumpeted across their domain.

"...and that brand will appear on her body..."

The little weird bug, proportionally probably just as overweight as his predecessor, snickered while flying around among the white marble stairs and monuments of the realm.

"...she will become the devils´ property."

The succubus nearly purred from her position to the left on top of an inverted structure, while hiding her naked form beneath her leathery wings.

While the girl trembled near the cliff which marks the border of the hellish realm in her thin sleeping dress, both the white cloth and her black curls becoming drenched in sweat because of the fear, trapped between the occult rune burned into the air in front of her and the chasm behind her which led to a maelstrom of evil souls some call Hell.

"Say it!..."

Void of the God Hand booms in his grotesque form, still without opening his mouth, but easily cutting through the moaning of tormented souls arising from the hellish ocean they were all gazing at.

"...One word ... just one word."

The cut up head of a demon slug, whom their tempting whispers were directed at, received them loud and clear and confronted with his own mortality after his regenerating body had been smashed, cut, shot and burned to pieces by the accursed sacrifice of a swordsman, a human! at that, he was swallowed by despair at the sight of his imminent future. Of his once giant, many limbed body that was level with the tops of trees only a face remains. Yet again the Hand´s members dangled the treat of salvation in front of him. Again the price would be paid in the iron reeking blood and soft flesh of his family. And just like back then he was overcome with the desire of escape. All was better than how it is now, no matter the consequences, no matter the price, if he could just escape once again all would be well.

Could it be called a miracle then? That when the demons tear filled eye came to reflect more than his future, when it came to see once again the fearful and begging face of his own flesh and blood, angel like in his eyes, "...father..." from between small rosy lips this single word escaped and the sight of Hell was eclipsed by that of better times, that the threat of destiny, woven in the deepest depths of the Not-Here and Not-There but Here and There, was denied?

Almost solemn the five "Angels" stood by while witnessing their Apostles now inevitable fall. Already the inmates of Hell were crawling towards them without respite. Like a giant snake or worm that rears its head from the muddy waters of a swamp, a column of corpse looking souls, crawling over each other like strangely oily ants, had grown from the titanic vortex of souls in the background to the void space this section of the realm of the God Hand opens up to. A serpent of death, twenty humanoid shades thick and longer than a mortal can count or an eye can see, all hell-spawns supporting each other or crawling across another often using each other as ladders, stretches towards the structures the Demon Appointing Ceremony had not taken place.

Faster than fought imaginable they shades of the dead had reached the Counts remaining body, they clawed and began to reap his souls by ripping apart his skin. The Counts last sight was of his frozen in shock daughter which spared him from the sight of Vargas disfigured face being at the forefront of the horde. Soon the Counts soul was ripped from his shell of flesh and dragged to Hell by the damned, leaving behind only a bloody splotch of flesh and his death wailings putting any banshee to shame.

Transfixed by the horrid sight, Guts failed to notice the smaller corpses made tongue of shades gripping his leg with tens of arms, even their murmurs of "Sacrifice! Sacrifice!" could not prevent the small fairy being alerted by the swordsman roar of pain and fear as he was hoisted into the air, his legs caught in the vice like grip of the dead which had been attracted by the brand on his neck. Already Puck was racing after him in desperation. He did not know what he should do to help him, but this instinct born out of loyalty to this human urged him on. The struggler in the meantime had given up the struggle, already was his battered body not able to contest the host of shades dragging him. Yet he was even now aware of his ultimate goal, his hunt not finished, the receding back of God Hand Femto so sweet a target that even with the reapers of Hell at his heels he loaded the canon within his prosthetic and took his shot.

A cloud of flame and ashes shot from the wrist, the cannonball racing unhindered for the black cape-winged spectre that haunts his memories, all for naught, for because the cannonball could rend spectral flesh and bones the human weapon shattered on the telekinetic field surrounding the spirit. But another unforeseen but perhaps still intended result arouse from this action born in a moment of despair. The recoil of the cannon shot had ploughed Guts right through the wailing shades shackling his legs. Now without anything holding him the black swordsman fell through free space towards the waiting maws and claws of Hell´s inmates below. Undeterred the little pixie raced after him, but unhearing of the little ones pleading shouts, Guts last sight from his lone eye was of the five God Hand members throwing him glances as they retreated, the slated crimson orbs of Griffiths eyes burning themselves inside his skull.

That was before the very world and space around him shifted and rippled. Like the waves in a pond the space seemed to bend to accommodate an injection into the sum of spatial perception around him. Yet it did not carry any force behind the wave. The spectres of the dead were stretched into unimaginable forms, elongated yet losing nothing of their mass but their relative position to himself did not change. He saw his own left bend at angles a piece of steel should never be able to be and the annoying fairy suddenly had a twin stuck to him.

He did not have the chance to even truly comprehend what happened, when putrid air and corpse stench greeted him in advance to a great maw filled with sword teeth suddenly closing around him and the luminous insect, plunging them into foul darkness in a single bite.

* * *

The next sight of the black swordsman´s eye was an unusual one. Blinded by a strong light the only thing he can see is a grey and pointy eared face by looms over him, red eyes giving off a crimson shine like rubies and peering into his own. He tries to move, but fear overtakes him when he finds himself unable to even feel the rest of his body. Suddenly the face leans back out of sight.

"Master,..." a female voice calls out beside him.

"... he is the right one, are we sure we got everything?" only to be answered by a grumbling voice from the far back.

"Yes, yes. Finished already are you? Well then prepare him and yourself for the transition already. ... Unless you want to become my specimen, that is? The Lady lets me have so few chances to study the matter. Stop wasting my time otherwise. I am just going to pre-configure the aurbical entropy scale programme for the inter-kalpic and trans-planar shifting after the time-stream submersion and then enter diapause myself. Go on already."

The female voice sighs in exasperation and answers acknowledges the other voice just with a short...

"Yes, master."

Before the grey face once again looks down at him, telling him in a more cheery tone.

"Goodbye! Until we meet again."

And he blacks out again.

* * *

When he comes to again, once again he is not master of his own fate, though this time he at least had room to struggle. Though futile as it turns out swiftly, and he soon ceases trying to dislodge himself from the impossible large claws in which a humongous bird of prey carried him with a vice like grip. Nor could his lone eye find even a trace of a ground beneath him, only an everlasting ocean of clouds. Falling now would surely end in his death. He did not believe in miracles, and whatever that was that had saved him previously - he doubted it would happen again. Tearing his eye from the ocean of grey clouds he looks up, trying to catch a look of the skies above him and his flying steed. While a storm rages around them, he can see above them a vast darkness and around him air so frigid he feared to drown because of water coagulating in his lungs.

"Struggler, ... do not give up hope! An end to your endless suffering is within reach. Seek me out where truth dwells, that is if you wish to break the gears of your doom, instead of leaving your soul to fall into the preordained abode of in-between-lives, the Under-Halls, which some call Hell. Filled to the seams with the imbeciles which did not make it into Sovngarde."

Before he can even think of answering a bird of all things, who had a surprisingly feminine voice he had to mentally note, the iron grip of the claws opens, giving him up to the storm and sending him falling once again. In vain he tries to cry out, but the deafening howl of the northern winds and the crushing pressure of the air throw him into unconsciousness again. Even one last cry of defiance or inquisition was taken from, as he feels darkness creeping into his mind.

* * *

No man is free, we are all slaves to something or another.

Money, fame, lust, greed, chains of family and society itself.

All tales, even the wildest of them, are tales of prisoners.

What then is a Prisoner, who breaks free of it all?

...

tbc


	3. Downwards to a Brand New World

**To get it out of the way, if there really are problems with people potentially assuming that I would own anything beyond a copy of the game in question - Skyrim, NO I DON`T!**

 **Some other things: originally this story grew out of me wanting to do a Skyrim/Berserk crossover where the LDB went to the Berserk verse - potentially awakening on a battlefield in Midland after a drunken night of revelry with Sanguine ...**

 **Could´ve nerfed the LDB to fit into Berserk, but then I went "Nah!" and decided to put Guts into Skyrim, but with that most of my plans for the LDB would right-out fly out of the window.**

 **See for yourselves what I ended up with...**

* * *

 **Downwards to a Brand New World**

* * *

 _"You picked a bad time to come to Skyrim, Imperial."_

-Hadvar

* * *

 **4E 201, 16th of Last Seed, Tamriel, somewhere above the Jerall Mountains:**

He fell.

He fell without even a hope of catching himself somewhere.

The initially rapid descend of hundreds of meters, had robbed Guts once again of consciousness and all air in his lungs.

 _`Not! Fucking! Again?!...´_

Was the only thought he could compose before darkness filling his mind anew. He did not even find time to cry out, as he was still wrapping his mind around what the giant chicken had told him. What was it anyway? An Apostle of some sort? But then its behaviour was even stranger, on the other hand - never had he heard rumours of a bird that could employ the speech of mankind.

The bird in question circled above watching him, evaluating. It´s vantage point was such that it´s sharp eyes could easily record the moment he was swallowed up by the dark and yet white carpet of storm clouds. Space, distance, timing - all factors were according to his orders.

 _`Truly...´_ It thought amused to itself. _`... too bad we shant be able to gaze upon their shock spelled maws, that´be a sight for the ages!´_

After it had turned its head away from the sight of the falling human, it went to report back and lets out a banshee´s screech, the spacial liminals warped and unravelled swiftly before it. Space was sundered in an area large enough to fit Dragonsreach into it. Afterwards its initial breaching, it was then torn and stabilized to open up a tear of some sorts within the barriers between the planes, the bird of prey circling in front of it. The darkness of the portal however, was soon replaced by a building of some sorts, that was shifting into the portals space. With a last beat of its mighty storm inducing wings, the bird then dived towards the building which was intruding into the mundial plane and set its strong claws onto the dark porphyry stone of the sculpted with abstract animal motives porch, which hanging through the portal. At its end, heavy hoarsteel-gates opened its wings by themselves to allow the envoy re-entrance into the dark catacombic interiors of the Tower proper.

Hraesvelgr, the corpse-picking devourer, had returned to his current lair.

* * *

Though Guts would never know, the strong wind streams, either by miraculous chance or unknown design, were actually slowing down his fall. The tornado he had been plunged into without warning by the unnatural bird may have taken his consciousness to his great ire, but it also granted him life - or would have.

What awoke him was not the thrumming of the blood in his airs, nor the screech of the air ... but a thunderous roar akin to thunder.

Still he was falling uncontrolled, with neither a way to see how close to the ground he truly was, nor knowing for how long he had been falling. In a desperate corner of his mind, he wondered if that annoying insect that had begun to haunt him lately could do something to save his hide. Then he realised that he didn´t even know if Puck was with him, or even willing to help him after his behaviour towards the count and his daughter - Theresa, if he remembered correctly the fairie´s shouts.

 _`Heh! As if.´_

Either way he did not see how he could come out of his alive, yet the still rational part of his mind told him that no matter what the bird had wanted off him, it wasn´t his death. The words it/she? spoke were quite clear in their regard that they wanted him to do ... something, whatever it had spoken about had been delivered as cryptically as the Skull Knight´s usual warnings.

...

Craning his neck while trying not to lose his lone remaining eye to the snow storm around him, he wondered if he shouldn´t have broken something by now, he saw nothing but grey around him.

`Clouds...´ He mused. `How many humans can boast of having seen them from above or falling through them?´

Another roar let him hone into its source which happened to be beneath him. Discerning a dark shape there with difficulties he fears of falling right into a mountain or something similar, a tall building perhaps. Suddenly, in a gap of the clouds he sees the shape´s surface being covered in massive dark scales. Vicious spikes came from the back of a flying dark beast that hadn´t noticed him yet.

Quickly gearing his left hand after positioning himself while freely barrelling downwards, he aims his arm down hopping that it was loaded. "Luck" was with him for once and his aim true. The shot barrelled into the beast´s carapace, the explosion tearing away the clouds hiding its body from his sight. Instead the reptilian being was now shielded from by the blasts smoke ... but that went for him as well.

Thankfully, after many uses, the gun´s recoil nearly yanked out his arm no longer. Still, without any foothold he was sent spinning in midair because of it. Using the momentum gained by the recoil and coupling with the shifting weight of the Dragonslayer, which he unsheathed from his back, he slowed down a bit, rolled in the air and delivered a chop with all his weight and momentum down on the scaled neck with all intent on severing it in the place which had been weakened beforehand by the cannonball.

His blow elicited another thundering roar, which at the proximity he was at took his hearing for some time. Guts felt the creature thrash, with what he hoped was pain, under the impact of the Dragonslayer, but dread filled him when he realized that his combination attack had failed to take the "probably Apostle´s" head. A shockwave of "solid air", not unlike the one caused by his cannon shot, threw him backwards. For once he wasn´t going downwards. And he was even more happy about this turn of events when the space he had just been at was filled by a sweeping draconic wing of blackish scale skin and vicious claws. In the following flurry of wings, flashing teeth and dark scales he was shot away from the beast by an unstoppable force seemingly carried by its roar.

When he thought how to the creature he probably was the equivalent of a spider suddenly dropping onto once neck, he couldn´t help himself but to laugh.

Infernal screeching erupted from before him, it rung in his ears and made them bleed and him bite down on a scream. For he did not want to give his position away and with the weather as it was, he hoped that even the most sensitive Apostle´s would not be able to sniff him out.

All too soon the force carrying him dissipated, and once again he began to fall anew. Still, he kept a desperate hold on his blade, through it was pulling him down all the faster, nor would he scream out in fear and despair. He would not despair in the face of certain doom, he hadn´t on former occasions and he wouldn´t start now! already his mind was running through insane scenarios how he may just save his life once again. He had been prophesized dead many a time already. Now ... wasn´t the time to just roll over and let himself squash against the ground, just because some overgrown chicken got tired from carrying him!

Hell, could wait for him all it wanted!

Among those with less faith in the gods and divines, there was a saying that miracles would only happen to those that worked hard towards them happening. Perhaps this saying could be used for Guts´ situation? For when plummeting towards death, a unaccustomed miracle of salvation reached for him. Truly, how often did this happen in his life already? Once, when he was picked up by Shizu and Gambino from beneath the tree from which his mother´s corpse dangled. Once, when the Skull Knight saved him and Casca from the Eclipse. Twice already the impossible happened to him because he kept his wits and survived long enough for something to happen. If he just held on a moment longer, he would be able to do "something", "something" would happen. That he firmly believed, life taught him that, that one was only truly dead when one gave up hope. This was what kept him going in those sleepless nights he was haunted by the vile spectres of the dead, and even the revelation that he would be dragged down to Hell upon his death could not rob him of that conviction.

Already salvation had been dangled in front of his face ...

... though, for some time it had looked like it had been cut prematurely.

With a roar that had Guts fear the flying Apostle from before had in fact found him again, the clouds in his vicinity were chased away around him. Suddenly, from one moment to the next, he could once again see colours beyond murky white. Above him was displayed a rich night sky covered by foreign star constellations and moving curtains of light dancing against the dark like snakes.

It was ... enchanting.

Tearing his eyes, both dead and alive, away from the foreign sight, he let his gaze sweep downwards. And while his eye hurt from the force of the wind howling and scratching at him, he could finally see the ground again, and it was ... white. White snow as far as he could see. Somehow that fact put him off even with the previous events. For a moment he wondered just where he ended up, for there should be no way for there to be snow around in this time of the year.

It wasn´t an important matter though. For the Black Swordsman´s tenacity was rewarded. The Dragonslayer, this huge and for a normal human impractical slab of steel, turned out to be his lifeline once again. While he was still fixated on the dark peaks of mountains pierce through the snow cover and he thought up dreaded images of himself crashing into one of those, a pale form shot forth from the storm clouds around him.

A great maw, filled with rows of vicious sword-teeth clamped down like a vice on the Dragonslayer pulling Guts downwards, halting his decent abruptly. His staggering stop, nearly lost him his grip on the sword he had held on for so long without knowing what he hoped for. Just in the moment that the sword would turn into his salvation he would have nearly let go off it. Such was the situations first irony he could think off.

The second irony was that he, the Black Swordsman and hunter of Apostles, monsters who took everything he held dear from him, across several countries would be saved by one such being. Nothing else he could think off would be able to just fetch him out of midair this easily. No, even if he would not be knowledgeable about the demons who plague his homeland, the starry blue eyes that looked down at him from beneath pale yellow bone ridges could never belong to some mundane animal. The supernatural intelligence and intensity burning inside them were unmatched even by the likes of Zodd Nosferatu, with whom he had faced off in the past.

That and he was sure no common ... being had stars depicted across their eyeballs, nor blue eyeballs in the first place.

Crying out in pain for the first time since he had tried to bury his sword in the bodies of the God Hand, he swung his legs around the edges of the Dragonslayer, straddling it and thus taking his body weight from his tortured arm. He sighted, feeling safe for the moment. If whoever caught him would have wanted to eat him it could´ve done so already or at least made attempts at it. Though he doubted he would actually ever be saved by someone he shot and struck at so soon after the attempted bodily mutilation.

For the first time he got a good look at what kind of creature he ran afoul within this storm. Beneath the jaws clutching his sword were several faded yellow bones, their formation almost reminding him of a grizzled human beard. The rest of the massive head, which probably could hold a carriage in it, was covered by faded by age greenish, almost white scales, each one larger than a humans head and marred by countless scratches and scars of all sizes. And above the already mentioned eye, horns jutted out from the creatures scalp like the jags of a crown.

The thing, which held his blade like a toothpick in its maw, was ...

 _`A_ _ _A friggin´_ dragon!´_

* * *

 **A bit longer than the previous chapter, had more planned but didn´t find the time to finish it. For now I have him not become scattered pieces of flesh on some cliff...**


	4. Thunderbattle

**Kinda want to apologize for not researching the effects of a free fall from the upper atmosphere before writing the last chapter, simply because I wanted to throw it to the lions. I hope to rectify some of it now. ... only minimal bloating.**

 **Dovahzul lexikon: (I hope everyone is content with it being before the text, IMO it´s always a chore to scroll down and up again. That way you can remember them as the chapter ... isn´t that long either way! Hahaha!)**

 **joor = mortal**

 **jul = humankind**

 **frod = field of battle**

 **bo = flight, movement**

 **nid = no**

 **Bron = Nord**

 **evenaar bahlok = keeping the hunger in check**

 **tinvaak = speaking**

 **hahdrim = mind**

 **vokrii = restore**

 **pruzah = good**

 **There are still a couple of other terms in Dovahzul in the dialogue, some are self explanatory, some are repeated in ... Cyrodiilic, and others are not meant to be understood. Or I was just too lazy to translate them? Look them up on if you want.**

 **Still playing around with the Thuum mechanic, for now** **all words in bold** **are empowered by the Thuum. Alduin will rattle off a couple of sentences like that, it´s possible - just look at the ritual greeting of the Greybeards or Morokei. IMO it´s a shame the dragons in Skyrim don´t use that mechanic to bring whole mortal armies to heel, it would have been a nice reason why only the Dragonborn can fight them.**

 **Another thing is that Alduin´s dialogue is entirely in Dovahzul, even though apart from the 1st part all is written in English. Sorry translating it is just too much work not to mention that there are several words which simply have no translation in Dovahzul that we know of.**

 **Enjoy and review!**

* * *

 **Skyrim: Usurpers**

 **Third Chapter: Thunderbattle**

* * *

 _"And the Scrolls have foretold,_

 _of black wings in the cold,_

 _That when brothers wage war come unfurled!_

 _Alduin, Bane of Kings, ancient shadow unbound,_

 _With a hunger to swallow the world!"_

 _\- Song of the Dragonborn_

* * *

 **Last time:**

The thing, which held his blade like a toothpick in its maw, was ...

 _`A friggin´ dragon!´_

* * *

 **4E 201, 16th of Last Seed, Tamriel, still somewhere above the Jerall Mountains:**

The human mind is a strange thing, sometimes uncannily sharp, often useless, and from time to time incomprehensible. In this case it was sharp yet so jumbled that it was already nearly incomprehensible. For one, Guts´ quick, even if addled by the just past lack of oxygen in his system, mind quickly noticed that this ... dragon, for lack of a better word known to him, had no trace of black scales on him at all, yet he was sure that the being he had ... fallen onto previously had been of a dark colouration. The terrifying idea, that it could then be a wholly different creature, than the one he shot and slashed at, only came to him after he found it strange that this ... dragon had no traces of his human form visible on him.

Certainly, some Apostle´s like Zodd completely changed shape upon transforming, but Guts found that most of them retained some pieces of their human guise. Be it an extra face, or the whole Apostle consists out of two fused bodies, one of them at least vaguely human. Most of them had traces of their humanity remaining even when letting their demonic powers run wild. Not to mention that their transformations often leaned more towards the grotesque and explicitly hideous than practical.

Among the twenty-three Apostles he had slain following the Eclipse to this day - not a single one had emulated a creature of legend that closely.

This dragon however, bore no traces of humanity at all and his body did not seem like something that could not exist naturally. If one for a moment could put aside the fact that dragons don´t really exist, ... probably, ... anymore, ...

Fuelled by the adrenaline coursing through Guts´ veins, his mind worked in overdrive. He quickly pushed away old presumptions and doubt settled within him if that dragon was truly an Apostle. Sure, even Apostles mostly couldn´t pick up on him being branded with the Rune of Sacrifice, though apparently some of those having attended Griffith´s transformation into a demon could pick up his traces on sent alone. Nevertheless, he doubted any Apostle would take the time to save him from certain doom. Having shed all their humanity they were not capable of acting out of the benevolence of their demonic souls. At least not to people not of the few they cherished even more than their own hides.

Within the span of the moment it took the pale dragon to flap his horizon to horizon stretching wings just once, Guts came to terms with the reality brought before him. Among the clouds and at the dubious mercy of a legendary being, of a sort he had never encountered before, with another such creature probably in flight not that far away from them.

Fighting back the darkness that threatened to swallow all thought, he began to devise a plan of action, he had had enough time to ponder this strange wonder, now was the time to think of survival. That whatever flew him through the clouds was no Apostle ... probably, was no reason for jubilation, considering that the alternative was a dragon. He would not cover before the unknown, nor let despair freeze his remaining limbs. Something bubbled up within him, it may be rage or fear, born from the terror inducing knowledge he had gained before in the realm of the God Hand. If he clung madly to life before, he certainly refused with all his being to die now that he knew for certain nothing but Hell awaited him.

His dim gaze wandered across the aged scales as big as heads or whole bodies, coated with rime, and jagged spikes growing from the armoured neck like the lance blades. Down the head and over the neck he searched for weaknesses in the scale plates and found none. Having failed to inflict any kind of visible damage to the other creatures black scales he feared this one's would be just as tough to crack. Once he saw the age-tattered wings with their comparatively light scale armour, just how did those keep such a bulky lizard in the air? He flashed bloodied teeth in pleasure. He felt driven all the more.

One problem solved, he thought off how to best use his strained limbs to crawl up his own blade and somehow dislodge it from the massive-mawed head, which was clouded with vapour, born from snow that landed on the head and evaporated with each breath the dragon took. Afterwards he would use the neck spikes as a ladder, climb the neck and hide behind the horns jutting out behind the ... fully sky blue eyes with iridescent stars shining from within? Eyes unlike any living being, nor like dead ones. His thoughts run in confused circles and somewhere he doubted any of this was even real.

Deep words cut through his confusion, ending them like a Nord swallowing down his mead. A sound like stones scraping in a grating dusty grind comes from within the maw filled with dull fangs, fuzzy with fungi, when grizzled Paarthurnax spoke to him in the precise and clear cut language of the empire´s Heartland.

"What astounding alchemy your left arm brings to the _frod_ harbouring in its hollow. Not often do the _jul_ design such tools, and while I cannot claim to know everything by virtue of gazing at the realm of man and mer down from my lair atop my **_Strunmah_** , I cannot fathom how such progress could have escaped my eyes."

Mortal memory is short, and rare are the instances when it crosses beyond the limits of each time-cycle. The southern sword-dancers may walk around it and the echoes of the Bron´s ... the pale skinned Nord´s fear born screams may echo through their minds all the time till Alduin spits them out again and beyond. Still Paarthurnax, as ancient as he was, had seen the mortals fall low enough that they needed to substitute magic with non magic based technology only so often. The glorious days of the Reman Empire and their void-vessels were the inversed scenario, yet the end product was oh so similar. No matter their means, in their weakness the mortals would always chaff at the stars above them.

But Paarthurnax testimony, after leering down at the pitiful weak bodied mortals from the top of the world´s throat, was that the men and mer of Taazokaan ... Tamriel did not employ such crude tools in this cycle. He would have seen their traces, he wouldn´t have missed the rows of muskets and cannons, nor their pungent stench that pervades the air. Oh, they had the knowledge, their study of the minerals had led them that far. But with magic pervading their society like fungi tendrils saltpetre and black powder had no chance to prove themselves. Never having had their potential for destruction realised, their obsolete knowledge fell into obscurity.

Not often the old dragon had the chance to satiate his curiosity, nor was it often risen. But a man´s dimming life falling through the dominion the Dovah share with no one, Skywhales and birds little more than prey for them, and his out of time apparatus urged him on to quench his desire for knowledge. But even more so than the trinkets of mortals, what interested him were the machinations of fate. Was it truly mere coincidence that the Mun Kendov ... the human warrior, happened to fall into the storms invoked by his and the returned Alduin´s greeting? How big truly were the chances of him just being an human that had become the unfortunate victim of a teleportation spell? In their world it was more usual for such an occasion to be result of intervention by the schemes of the other Ada. Was the human warrior a champion then? Of either the ones termed Aedra or Daedra? Either way was doubtful, the Aedra had no means to do so lest a mortal vessels comes about to be filled by them and the later ... once the time-wound, the Tiid-Ahraan, had been traversed by Alduin they had withdrawn their last vestiges of presence, which were allowed to them after Bormahu had closed the mundial doors before their faces. None of them fancied running afoul the Dragon King on Mundus, for fear of having their treasured nymics spelled out and having to recollect their shredded guises back in Oblivion into a new face.

There came no explanation to the airborne warriors existence. Logic dictated he didn´t exist, but deep seated understanding had Paarthurnax save the mortal. Even if it was coincidence, who was to say nothing more could come of it? And if not that, chance and valiantly clinging to remnants of life under such conditions were deemed warranting a boon at the very least in recognition.

Tearing away his mind from his recollection of how the present situation came about, Paarthurnax gave words to his thoughts, uttering them in a query both to the human sack of half dead meat, on whose metal poker he had clamped down on, as well as to himself. A reminder to not to on a mental tangent again. Time was short, and right now it grew ever shorter, disappearing behind bared teeth like etched ebony scythes, row upon row in shear-pointed choir.

"Be that as it may, how come? To imagine I would come across a mortal _bo_ , ... nay, freely dance amidst the clouds? Are you perchance one of the _Ada_ beyond? _Nid_ , you bear none a sign ... truly a mystery ... you are."

He added in a lower tone, yet Guts had more immediate problems to deal with than the dragon´s queries. He held on for his dear life, desperately clutching his sword stuck between the fangs of the elder wyrm, while he tore through the rumbling thunderclouds at speeds greater than any hawk could even hope to achieve on those flimsy wings.

Noticing that Guts was rather preoccupied with not falling off, or slipping into unconsciousness and his bleeding ears and eye as well as the decolouration of his skin hinting at his prolonged lack of oxygen even now as they ploughed through the skies not far beneath the slipstream between Mundus and Oblivion.

"... Oh, ... do forgive me. Trying _evenaar bahlok_ , ... it has been ages since I held _tinvaak_ with a new _hahdrim_. My rampant curiosity, I gave in to it."

His words were muffled, due to him still keeping his maw sealed, lest Guts anchor to life would dislodge itself. Thus he spoke the power laced word using tongue and breath alone from behind closed ivory jaws.

" ** _Vokrii!_** "

At his spoken word, an almost visible gentle wind bearing the notes of spring flowed from his maw, filled with acidic spittle and promises of death and doom as it is, towards Guts. Against all laws of nature, the breath did not dissipate nor was it blown away by the storm currents whipping around them, instead it seeped into Guts battered body mending it.

His accumulated internal damage, caused by a multitude of factors ranging from the recoil of his arm cannon, which nearly yanked out his shoulder and gave him a lung contusion from the sudden shift in movement, to the black scaled dragon´s roar which busted his eardrums and sprained all of his joints on to the gases which had expanded having lacked any external pressure in the higher altitudes and threatened to burst his internal organs, all mended itself and healed before vanishing without a trace. Cleaning up the battered mess that was his body.

Paarthurnax, using the Thu´um mortal tongues had adopted as the Whirlwind Sprint, then caused a bubble of air to expand around them. Causing them to fly at even higher speeds, speeds at which a mortal body would already be torn to shreds from acceleration. Yet the air flowing around one and then joining behind once back, that was the secret to the Whirlwind Sprints speed.

This tyranny over the world through spoken words shielded Guts from the violent pressure of the air caused by the wyrm´s unnatural fast flight, which would have threatened to tear the swordsman from his iron safety line still stuck between sword-teeth.

Truly, the word was mightier than the sword.

While encased by the wind stream they were riding, Paarthurnax turned his judging eyes back on the human holding onto his weapon through all ordeals. When he had noticed the mortal warrior the first time while searching for his brother´s _Su´um_ , his life force, he had only seen his crimson wisps of remaining life from afar, both his appearance or even his form remained unknown till he had the human barrel through the clouds. He truly was an enigma, misplaced and non coherent culturally. He was a patchwork human, like a chimera he incorporated things of different sources. The human´s gear and the human within just didn´t fit together. Armour which hadn´t been seen across the Sky´s rim since long bygone times, a prosthetic arm not of this continent and other inconsistencies. A disjointed puzzle piece.

After starring at the human for a prolonged time, it turned into something he could not help himself point out to the warrior through shut rows of yellowed fangs. Feeling in his bones that the other was even more clueless than him.

"You wield a greatsword coated with the ever-ice from the Utternorth, and not only that. Truly you are full of unexpected ... circumstances, issues. Clad in it like rime. A strange sight you are for my old eyes."

Guts, who had used the opportunity when no air pressure from the air race was fighting to wrench him off to sit on his blade with his back to the dragon, took this words as his cue to look at himself more closely for the first time since reawakening after the battle with the Count. Over the interlocking plates of an intricate heavy of unknown make which had been put on his person, was a sheet of ice like a coating of rime. The ice, dull under the current weather, would have shined with the light of the sun breaking against it and exposing him to his enemies under other conditions. Even his Dragonslayer, the irony was not lost on him, stuck between the dragon´s teeth was covered by frost not stemming from the low temperature. Having taken a breather and checking that his body was stable enough for the moment he answered the dragon´s query, he had no reason not to, for the moment at least this dragon seemed to have no ill intent.

"Heh! You are surprised, you? Fuck! How should I know?! Put yourself in my shoes, there I wake up falling through the empty air just for a giant lizard with bat wings to catch me?"

"Did I return your ... tongue manipulative faculties just for you to jibber and jabber without sense? I see though that you are indeed just as surprised as I am myself. Tell me. Why do you come here, _volaan_? Why do you intrude on my _krif_ with _Alduin_? Or did you want to partake in our _tinvaak_? Do tell me, are you perchance some spirits, you may call them gods champion?..."

For truly, in Paarthurnax eon long memories coincidences like the current didn´t exist.

"... or are you merely some foolish child experimenting with magicks beyond your years?"

Paarthurnax saw how his words struck a chord within the human, his small body froze and with a deliberately slow movement the warrior turned his head to look into his right eye orb, the gnash of teeth in fury accompanying it and a flashing eye locked in a match with his own.

"I really got no interest in the tail comparison contests between flying lizards!"

Guts growled back, denying any interest in what he understood to be contest, battle of some sort between this dragon and the dark one he had met before.

"Nor do I know where or why I am here, but no damned `god´ has anything to do with it! It was just some overgrown chicken that dropped here me after spewing out riddles."

"Surely you jest, no chicken could take you to such heights to which even the hawks and snow-whales rarely ascent. I would have a taste of your hoard of thought another time. For now let us make haste, for _Alduin_ has gained space on us."

Another dragon in the sky, thundering to their altitude: enormous, looming. A keening shrieking roar, like a banshee´s scream - coils and coils of snares and snares, a light devouring bulk in the sky - dark and dull scales slick with gore. The scent of copper infesting the air.

 ** _"KKKRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"_**

Carrying the promise of doom on his wings, he appeared out of nowhere. Like the beast waiting in ambush that he was, he fell on them, his massive black wings spreading apart the clouds above and throwing his shadow on his younger kin and human. Talons, the size of horses trying to clamp down on the back spines of his younger brother in a vice like grip but failing as the air cocoon Paarthurnax had spoken into existence fought against any intrusion and caused him to miss.

 **"** ** _Paar-Thur-Nax! Hi bokul Tahrodiis! Aam dovah pruzah fah ont, Zu´u fen naak tol joor win ahrk ont Zu´u piraak drey grik wah daar blod-slen, ruz mu vo Tiid himsesosaal!_** **"**

 **["** ** _Paar-Thur-Nax_** **! You wretched traitor! You served me well for once, I´ll eat that mortal whole and once I have dealt with this ram-meat, then we can resume your just punishment!"]**

It was the dark scaled beast Guts had met shortly before, no doubt was in his mind as the black dragons blood curling red gaze bore down on him and foreign words slam into him like a battering ram.

Sky blue meets infernal red and tears itself away.

The grey dragon sped away, carrying him along as he desperately straddled his sword and held onto some scales jutting out from the dragons head. Trying to keep his wits about him as sudden nausea whipped his body from the insides.

The vast black maw gapes, the dragon _chuckles,_ in dry, bone-humming humour from between neat rows of ebon teeth.

 **"** ** _Paarthurnax_** **! My teeth to your neck!** **You piss drinking sload! Only** ** _Durnehviir_** **is more decrepit than you! Your state shames the immortality of our brethren, and now you degrade yourself further to be a mortals air steed?! Your Voice Legend Hear! Hear! What remains of it?!"**

Paarthurnax paid no mind to the insults being spit out by his elder sibling, he was old and wise enough to interpret the taste carried on the winds. This man, this warrior he was carrying - was NOT the Dovahkiin. And yet there was a certain air around him, something that distanced himself from the mundial plane around him. Isolation, lack of binds. In the previous millennia the aged dragon had seen enough to understand the importance of key figures. And thus he sped away, he fled combat with Alduin against all instincts of the dov and fled the battlefield. No lesser dragon would have been able to lock down his nature to that extent. His ichor throbbed with the deep rooted desire to out-speak the greatest of their kin. There could be no greater honour, no desire was more pronounced in a dov´s mind. If not for the years of meditation and self contemplation he could not have fled. But he did, for right now - the survival of this mere human with an unknown place in the world was more important than his shackled pride.

 _At this slight, the sinuous, iridescent throat of Alduin thrusts toward the sky, thrumming in outrage, a multitonal shriek parting the weave of reality. Seeing his prey together would it make all the easier to vanquish them. His Su´um, his breath, surged upwards through the throat, throbbing with power unmentionable, spilling onto his tongue and out! Out!_

 **"** ** _FO NAX YOL_** **!"**

A noxious, acidic blue-white spew like icy sludge sprays out from the dark dragon's slavering maw through space and forming tendrils of liquid ice crawling after fleeing Paarthurnax like air-snakes. Once the traitor would be locked in battle with him those tendrils would catch up and make an opening for Alduin towards victory.

Having given shape to his curse Alduin´s armour-boned black wings stretch their hoarfrost webs from horizon to horizon; massive, horny nostrils flex, catching multicoloured musk from the wind; the depths of the scaled, chest heave, and with a blast of bitter winter wind the dragon roars into the skies, giving chase.

* * *

Their pursuer shouts in his unknown language and thunder rolls across the heavens before eerie stillness settles around them in its wake. The skies suddenly clear, storm clouds having filled the void between the earth and the heavens seem to vanish from one moment to the next, fleeing as if in fright or heeding to absolute authority. A unnatural shift of the air is all the warning Guts receives before the dragon that picked him up begins to have problems retaining its altitude. Desperately trying to keep his massive bulk flying he had become unusually slow and unsteady, wings beating the air feverishly but it seems to be a losing battle. Right now this tyrant of the skies wasn´t any swifter than a common bird. Agonizingly slow their altitude drops, the bubble of air shielding Guts from the elements of the sky had had dissipated into thin wisps of coloured air. A battle in which their loss was concluded from the beginning.

Guts saw the signs, he saw it all happening and was powerless to stop any of it. Was this his fate, he thought in the dark corners of his mind, the fate of those mingling with beings possessing powers beyond their own? Was a desperate death truly all that awaited him at the end of his journey? The Skull Knight had told him to struggle, the God Hand, Griffith had told him that all struggle was meaningless in the end. That no matter what he did he could never achieve anything that would upset the flow of destiny. And yet his very existence was a breach from destiny.

"Oi! Dragon, can´t you do something?..."

The bird had brought him here, it had told him that salvation could be found! Too many questions were left unanswered, why didn´t it take him to where it wanted him to come? Why did it speak in riddles even more nonsensical than the Skull Knight? Was that just a tick of those with power, or something?

"You prattle easily for a mere passenger."

But he was certain that the bird had not meant for him to die here. Thus a path towards survival had to exist.

"...I can´t see the other dragon because of your wings but I´m sure he´ll be attacking us any second! Or is he affected by whatever happened the same way you are?!"

The blue, starry eye swivelled towards the human perched on his own blade still stuck between his teeth. Most unnerving for Guts, as with the wyrm´s eyes like they are he could never truly see what the dragon looked at.

"Nay, the World-Eater, _Alduin_ robbed me of the storms keeping aloft my wings! Truly, mightiest he is among those dwelling in the mortal plane. _Alduin_ , my brother, every part of the world moves at his bidding. But worry not, I am not yet at a loss for words."

Ivory spears beneath a bone crest opened, the massive blade of the Dragonslayer formerly stuck between them dislodges and Guts suddenly loses his perch. With a shout of surprise he grasps with his healthy hand for the sword handle, now hanging from the dragon´s face just by the crook of his elbow which is thrown around a bone spike at the side of the pale dragon´s face. Tormenting slowly does he slip down and loses his last grip on safety among the empty sky. He guessed that when falling from such a height there was little difference between falling together with the dragon or alone. The human´s curses are drowned out by the wyrm, whose tongue from between menhir-sized fangs whips out words in an unknown tongue. With his mouth now free to exclaim his _Su´um_ , his breath and life force freely once again, Paarthurnax bellows towards his ancient opponent, the world as his witness and any that would listen. _Words throb through the air, palpable, shimmering. They rob Guts, who had just placed his titanic sword in front of him to veer through the air on it, of his mind, reverberating and deafening._ Just like the Maomer would ride on their water-sleighs pulled by various sea-creatures, he had surfed the air currents towards the inevitable ground. _Now his feet slipped and body succumbed to the nausea. His form atop the large piece of sturdy metal was ruined, and once again he was at the inexistent mercies of the skies. It was as if one had taken an iron hammer and pounded in his head with it. Yet even in such a state his grip on the Dragonslayer´s handle didn´t slack. For a moment he thought the drake had finally turned on him, but though his eyes showed him nothing but agony induced whiteness, he felt cold scales wrap around him, steadying him. Once his senses return to full capacity he notices the ivory tail wrapped around his body, smeared by crimson, which dropped from his face._

Paarthurnax had not spent the ages Alduin had been banished idle. He found what no other Dovah had sought to do and garnered allies among the earthbound worms wallowing in their misery. Five Tongues answered his call for aid from the slopes of the Throat of the World, and the mountain shuddered. Snow, grinded into fine mist, rose up from the mountain. Like a thick cloak, the vapour covers Tamriel´s highest mountain, ever growing, ever amassing volatility tempered by song and will expressed through grammar. A cover of tempest grey, mottled with white and flashes of lightning.

From the far northern realms, a frigid wind raced across the star browed waves of the Sea of Ghosts and the pines and mountain peaks of Skyrim. The storm wave ripped away the clouds of foreign lands away from their native skies, like an unstoppable avalanche it carries with it all in its path. The storms invoked from High Hrothgar were no exception. And their combined might thundered south unrelenting. Paarthurnax spoke once again, calling all of the brewing tempest towards them. Like the rising tides of the foamy rolling ocean, which floods the sandy beaches of Stros M´Kai, so were the skies surrounding them flooded by free winds, breaking the oral law of Alduin. Who hurled his ire at them across the now refilled expanse from a relative position unknown.

 **"Wretched kin-traitor! Not only did you bestow your boon on mere mortals to battle your kin with it, no, you would even throw in your lot with the likes of the Twilight of the Gods, who feasts on your cherished** ** _Kaan_** **? What arguments did you use to sway her of all mortals to your side?"**

"Nothing akin to that, o _zeymah_ and _thuri_ of mine. I merely gave them the words to express their ache during my long waiting on _Monahven_ and the _Bronjud_ ´s ache is greater than any. It is only naturally, that she would strike at you when the chance posses itself. You know all that, it is why you keep swallowing them first."

 **"Have the hate filled screeches of the mortals addled your mind? Do you believe they would provide you with an abundance of gratitude? Their greed is without end and boundless! Soon in their shallow minds they will etch out a plan to skewer you with their metal pokes as well!"**

"That may be. _Krosis_. For our brood is always seen as a danger by them, rightfully so, isn´t it? After all our _bahlok_ is never sated."

 **"Time flows ever onward. You knew. One day I would surface. Which is why you dwelled on the remains of that lost peak, where my foes of long ago, those** ** _joorre/_** **mortals you enthralled with your Voice! For many a span you have waited. You knew where I would emerge, where times lies shattered, but not when! The** ** _Kel_** **/Elder Scroll did not defeat me. What chance are you scheming for now, treacherous** ** _Paarthurnax_** **?!"**

The sky´s clouds roiled and turned a bloody red, this was all the warning they got before fallen stars consume the space around them. Amidst the descending inferno the drake throws his apologies towards the human warrior in the grasp of his tail.

" _Krosis_. To avoid battle like this, I tried. Our _Thu´um_ spears living memory, carrying thunder storms, _Su´um_ fuelled, propelled to heights unknown to the _jul_. The _Dov_ discourse, where the _Muz_ discuss. Small wonder why their words mean so little to us. He would and will smash his words through your feeble _hahdrim_ ... mind just for the imprinted afterimage of his violence and the self-affirmation that implies. Mark his wrath, but heed him not. I shall be hard pressed shielding you from the truths we will exchange. However I cannot foresee either your death or survival."

"That´s good! Cause I can´t stand prophecies."

Guts shouts back over the cacophony of rend air and future destruction, uncaring if the dragon indeed manages to understand him under the present conditions.

"A remarkable mindset. Most would prefer to be able to prepare for the future. But now is not the time for _tinvaak_ about this topic. It may yet come, a time to exchange thoughts about ... my apologies _joor_. _Tinvaak_ _se dovah voth joor_ ... For me a dragon to converse with a mortal again, I fell to the temptation of indulging myself. Mortal warrior! _Su'um ahrk morah_! Rouse your spirit to its peak and above! And let us roar our life-breath at _Alduin_ in unmatched defiance!"

Finally battle was unavoidable. Paarthurnax had flown downwards as quickly as he could, while still maintaining an altitude fit to cross the Jerall Mountains ever since he had picked up Guts. It would not do to save the he who the old wyrm assumed to hold a key towards the future to survive the debate between Dovah and then die in the snowy mists of the sky reaching peaks. The shower of falling Oblivion dust forced him down all the more, for in higher altitudes the rocks would not only be more numerous but also larger, due to them not having lost weight to the friction of the atmosphere.

His forcibly accelerated descent drove him right into Alduin´s awaiting maw, surging forth from the frostborn nebula covering the skies of Tamriel, Alduin´s tongue _poured his Voice down Paarthurnax Throat until it would burst._ The cloudy sky _ripples_ strangely with silent, impossible impact. The older looking wyrm seemed to swallow the ripple in the air down its throat, its head leaning back and then coming back forward as it spit the ripple back at the dreaded opponent.

Wingtip to brotherly wingtip with, scales webbed in rime-ice to scales webbed in coppery gore flailed at each other while their talons dug deep tears into each other's mail. The strength of their kicks immeasurable to the single human eye observing this battle of divinities. Itching to take part in it, contrasting his earlier words, if just to guarantee his own survival. But there was no room to do so, with the grey drake holding him taking care to keep his tail far from the tumult of the confrontation, while the black dragon kicked upwards trying to grab or tear into his opponent, somehow traversing the air lying on his back. Their wings were used both to fly as well as in a mockery of a human´s punch. Their roars, uttered from snapping at each other jaws, carried curses and deeply cutting arguments against which no hide was thick, nor any scale hard enough. A never ending back and forth, that was accompanied by the elements of the sky hurling themselves at one of them. When slightly in the lead, the black dragon inhales and releases a gout of flames at the sky bathing his opponents head in the sweltering heat of the fiery stream. However immutable cold spewed forth from behind white razors and Paarthurnax cold defence won over his brother´s incinerating argument. The others flailing tongue whips out these words in smouldering hate.

 **"Once I am finished with you I shall invade Sovngarde to** **suck the sap** **from mortal souls!"**

Words for which the Grandmaster of the Greybeards had nothing but sighs on the wind.

" _MEY_!... Fool! I object to this course and resent the taste of your words!"

The black dragon roared at them in the Dovahzul, meanings hidden in thundering power sounds, which in the Black Swordsman´s badly damaged ears were but strangely pitched thunder-roars.

 **"Shut up! Shut up! Because NOW I AM TALKING. And I'm going to KEEP talking until you are nothing but mucus staining the rocks! Through past horizon and future horizon I wrench to the wheezing summons of** ** _dez_** **and the** ** _Kelle_** **I came! Me - The World-Eater! Who no power dares stand against! Those mortals you so cherish - They overthrew us their overlords; they threw off long millennia of aspiration and instead forced the tragedy of their eternal mortality down our throats in our own Voice. And they were successful; we dwindled, and even I,** ** _Alduin_** **choked on their bitter cup! No more!**

 **I am the turn-around-rune, recaller! MY heartwyrm will scour the land! Mine brethren come! Pale wyrm´s that began nestling by mine pounding heart, they GREW STRONG! THEY understood the blood! The Conquering!**

 **And you Mister Eternally-Effervesces-From-His-Hindquarters need to just** ** _clamp down on your trap_** **before the mortal starts getting ideas. Or I'll get to learn what fizzy feels like from the inside!"**

Suddenly the black menace ceased his air rending monologue and vanished from sight. The sudden stop of reverberations torturing his mortal head, rose even Guts from Thu´um induced stupor, but only just in time to see the orange clouds heralding the infernal stream heading for them.

DRAGONS!

Four of their brood, green scaled examples were two among them, the other was a strange mixture of grey and green, finally the last a colossus of an orange tint nearly like muted gold.

They did not cease cackling flames and fury onto them all over.

"Richness of hoard and prey onto you, my brothers!"

One of them intoned before joining in the barrage of flames.

The pale scaled tail holding him suddenly swung through empty air before crashing with a resounding *crash*, that sounded more like colliding stone towers than anything else imaginable, into the side of a green drake, just below the fluttering left wing where the scale armour was weakest. The Blooddragon shrieked in verbalized pain and fury, nearly choking on its own words, its fiery curses stopping as it felt cold iron sundering his scales and digging through its flesh. Hot blood streaming forth like a geyser as his side was hewn open to the biting cold of the air. The life-water was inundating Guts, his sword tasting dragonblood for the second time since having been born in the flames of old Godo´s forge.

" _Pruzah_! Well done!"

In a display of aerial acrobatics born from centuries of individual practice and millennia of territorial battles before the World-Eater´s waking, Paarthurnax deftly evades the grasping talons and ensnaring tail of his elder brother. Rolling in midair he catches the third oldest dragon orange head in his talon´s clutches. Ivory claws cruelly pierced through the both eyeballs and into deeply the brain. Once retrieved they still sported the ocular organs like barbaric jewellery on their hooked tips.

" ** _Mir-Mul-Nir!_** You earthen worm, where did you find the courage to crawl out from beneath the mud down below?! I see your characteristic blunt subtlety and disgusting maw-manners have not changed in the least!"

Swinging his tail around like a thorny whip, the battle turns around into Paarthurnax favour, as Guts eviscerates the second Blooddragon head with a mighty swing of the Dragonslayer which rends the weaker scales beneath the heads bonecrest all the way down to the corners of the mouth, leaving the dragon´s jaw with a slasher-smile and a forked tongue unable to pronounce a Thu´um without tasting its own curse. The scene roused something nearly forgotten in the wise Dovah, something primal and for a moment he forgot to care about the goal of his meditations.

REnD YouR eneMieS ASunder!

TramPLE THeM!

ExHileRATION!

EviSceRAtions!

BatTle!

Meanwhile, Guts was gripped by mild unease as he looked at the state of his gear. It had survived the fire-test, but he realised that that may well just have been because of the ice coating his person and sword. A coating that nothing remained of after the continuous onslaught by the five enemy dragons. Not even droplets of water. Thankfully the ice and the dragon tail curled around his body had kept him safe, mostly ... he wasn´t all that sure about the state of his face. Already his helmet had felt more than just uncomfortably hot, had it not been for the cooling bath in the dragon´s blood ... he did not know what his state right now would be. He knew for sure though that dragon blood had a disgusting stench, knowledge he could have done without, for he was coated with it from head to toe. Even the rough scales surrounding him and the handle of his sword were slick with the crimson liquid from the gullets of it that had been shed with each of his swings. Yet he had other, more pressing worries. The Thu´um battle had not left him without marks aside from the loss of his rime coat. Amidst the dragon blood pooling in the coils of Paarthurnax tail a hefty amount belonged to him, streaming down to mix itself in the red coloured blend from across his body where old scars had been torn open again and his face which bled from nearly every pore.

His lone eye, crimson from burst blood vessels and feeling about to burst, was the first to notice the winged doom racing towards them.

Alduin _, Dovthur and Diiv_ ... World-Eater, King of Dragonkind and very essence of their kin, was displeased. For others aeons had taken place since his banishment onto the wild streams of time, coils of Bormahu which flowed outside of Mundus, leaving the Arena and having never been used. Just once, when Orkey´s call for aid had served him as a tether, he had been able to tear apart the fabrics of his prison, the scintillating scales which separated him from vengeance upon his enemies. He beat the air into submission with a single flap of his midnight wings, spreading them and digging their claws into the veil of reality and using it as a counter force he shot towards the battle like a bolt from a crossbow. A plume of smoke and some feeble resistance was put into trying to hinder his advance, which he just ploughed through without regard before digging his talons and rending flesh, already he could himself see tearing his brother´s aged scales from his back in retribution for the disasters and infamy which had befallen his sibling-flight. Too late he notices the shimmering indicating that Paarthurnax had shifted his body into the astral phase and the stored momentum had him clearly shoot through his enemies and beyond trying to regain his bearings in the turbulences created by the storms born from his wings.

Back above the World-Eater scratching at the winds, fighting against his own momentum, Paarthurnax saw the feeble state the thu´umic debate had left his human passenger in. Yet on his command, whispered to cause no more pain than necessary, flesh mended itself and bodily functions were restored.

Recovering from his head splitting migraine, Guts inquired from the coiled tail shouting towards the dragon´s head.

"What the Hell just happened?!"

" _Drem_ ... patience, mortal. His fall may yet happen. Do not be hasty. As you saw when you fired the machine hidden within your metallic arm, weapons of mortals cannot injure my brother so easily, cannot shake his truth. At this ... moment in _Tiid_ ... time there is nothing in this plane that can truly harm him. As for how I evaded his charge, I broke the limen of this reality and plunged our frames into another layer, leaving naught but a phantom, a remnant if you so will in our place. Still, ... to have landed a blow on _Alduin_ in such a state, _Zokdu Diiv_ ... eldest dragon! Warrior of the _joorre_ , I would have your title ... name!"

The dragons words easily reached the human clasped in its tail, even with the winds howling around them constantly.

"Guts, just Guts."

The Black Swordsman shouted back at the top of his lungs, unsure if the dragon expected him to have some fancy title, and willing to give up his name only due to being overwhelmed by the absurdity of the situation.

"Fitting in its irony! For one who wades through the gore streaming from wounds he strikes to be called after it, I shall conserve it within my _Dovhadrim_!"

Their banter was cut short, as from behind them words like thunder swept over and further them across the sky, as behind dark clouds marshalled by Alduin announced his return and pervaded the skies above them. His words reverberating in tandem with the beat of the world.

 **"Never will I understand the mortal kind. Arrogant fools! Clinging to the unliving to do battle. How can they ever hope to grow?! If they can do nothing but depend on others even after so long then truly, there is no hope for them.** **Your pride will be humbled! Your hopes will all wither. This Cycle, I declare it over, Twilight is upon us, as we are marching towards the end. Mortals war, body piles upon body till blood chokes the land. The realm will end and it will be born again once more!"**

"Don´t forget, _Alduin ... Zeymah_ , those who try to hasten the end, may yet delay it."

 **"Now that I have returned. Those who do not bow will be devoured. And you, I devoured you before! Your soul will feed my hunger!"**

"What is 'now', _Zeymahthuri_ Strange words from a _dovah_. _Tiid fey qeth_! _Ahrk vaat zu'u_ _wahlan_. _AKA KUL SE AKA_ ... _Aka_ son of _Aka_ , _Alduin_ , your own six-syllabled soliloquy of old. You forget the _krent vintaassos_ , as well, _krent Aka sil se siiv joor_ ; what of the _dovahkiin_? Some fragments yet remain, and they cannot but find each other; _deztiid se denek_. And for those few, perhaps, the ghost tides still wait to bear them hence to the emerald-iced shores. They may yet follow the sea-steps of the Stormcrown!"

 **"You shall not worry! I shall give our youngest brother all the honours I give others challenging my rule!"**

Soon gloom stretched from one corner of the land to the other, as the menacing swiftly approaching shadow growled back in Dovahzul.

 **"All the same! I am** ** _Alduin_** **! I am King of this world! All the sword-scaled scions in flight or other shards trying to contest this fact shall kneel before my wrath!"**

He accentuated his declaration with a lightning strike.

The continuous electrical blast surged forward faster than either of its targets could react. To their eyes it was nothing more but a massive flash bursting forth from the surrounding storm clouds that seared across Paarthurnax scarred scales, blackening them and streaming through Guts´ sword and iron arm into his body, searing nerves burning flesh. When finally old wings brought forth a storm of their own to diffuse the charge, the lightning bolt still refused to stop being attracted by the human´s iron and steel armaments. While enduring violent spasms and hearing his teeth shatter, Guts somehow forced his arm with indomitable will to throw his long standing partner upwards. Charcoaled fingers giving up the handle as an offering to the enraged skies. Bait for the lightning which let off from them.

"Shit! Shit! Shiiiit!"

With a dismayed eye, and heaving from the shock induced by the attack that he should have seen coming considering the location of their battle, he followed the trajectory of his sword as it fell down towards the mountain tops peeking through the cover of clouds. Not even noticing anymore how his body once again is healed via Thu´um.

" _Hi tinvaak do nii_ ... you speak of it like Nords of their axes! Do not fret, you may still regain it. It has not been destroyed so may still recover your blade from the snows of the Jerall Mountains."

Coils unravel, and with a sharp twist of the tail Guts is sent flying. Paarthurnax having flown in a descending spiral quickly caught the now weapon less mortal on his back. The impact robbed him of his breath, yet Guts quickly grabbed for some of the spikes coming out of the dragon´s carapace, steadying himself.

"Feel honoured mightily, _joor_! None did I ever let ride between the spikes of my neck!"

"I´ll feel even more honoured when you set me down on the ground."

Guts answered while easing his battered body between two spikes on the neck, after climbing there from his landing point just ahead of the wing joints under precarious conditions, now riding there like on a saddled horse. With a scrutinizing eye he watched the still smouldering patches of scale armour, testament both to the power of the black dragon´s attack and this once resilience, as he didn´t even seem to notice nor doing any move to heal himself.

"So what´s going on between the two of you? You´re talking an awful lot for a fight!"

"Hahaha! You have much to learn of the _Dov_ , then. There is nothing else but philosophy to a _Dovah_. It is no accident that we do battle with our _Thu'um_ , our Voices. There is no distinction between debate and combat to a dragon. _Tinvaak los grah_. For us it is one and the same. Do be careful now, I will dive sharply."

True to his word, Paarthurnax took a sharp dive his trajectory as if he wanted to land on a rock jutting out above the carpet of clouds beneath them. At the last moment he swerves to the side, circling the peak. His strong tail smashed against it repeatedly, shattering its foundation and threatening to collapse it entirely. A sound like a thousand castle towers collapsing echoed across the land, still the peak locked nowhere ready to topple down.

 ** _"BO RO DAH!"_**

Expanding air, nearly uplifted Guts from his seat while fleeing from overwhelming power, while the scintillating wave having bloomed into existence from Paarthurnax tongue smashed its way through the air and then tore at the peak until it gave way and let itself carry away without resistance. The peak, easily the size of a castle, floated there in the midair. The more it moved away from its rightful position it began to pick up speed and finally it tore towards the approaching tentacle of formed from dark clouds. Where undoubtedly, Alduin was hidden within.

Awe, fear and hope warred within the branded swordsman´s chest. Awe and fear at the power of the being he rode on, hope at the dark dragon finally being beaten. Yet his tentatively hope was smashed to tiny pieces as the dark clouds seemed to swallow the great snow trailing rock in a single gulp. Vanishing it without a trace.

"Do not worry unnecessarily, Guts. A distraction nothing more. It was to allow us a get away from his prying eyes. Down below, there ... a dwelling of the _joorre_ , I shall let you off there."

Paarthurnax told him feeling his trepidation before continuing.

"Feel proud, gore-named, you are just the fourth _jul_ , the fourth of your kind _krif_ against my _zeymah_ and _thur_ of all _Dov_... dragonkind, and be able to boast about surviving! Do not be dismayed at his dismissal, young warrior, your name may still reach even the ears of the _Dov_. But right now your voice is weak, you wield a voice of air like all the other mortals, not like the _Dov_ , who wield a voice of _strun_ and impose their tyranny over the world. It may not reach him, who your kind crowns the World-Eater all too rightfully. Stay valiant, and be true to your path, it may yet change. Fly well!"

The sudden force tearing him from the dragon´s neck had been everything but anticipated. A cocoon of twisting air had formed around him, carrying him, without so much as asking for his consent, downwards towards a vestige of humanity the lizard had thought to have seen.

The parting words rolled out of the dragon´s maw like an avalanche, making the air vibrate in sync with the massive tone-organs. Guts, however only listened with half an ear, his concerns were more of an immediate nature. While he had confidence in the air-stream, which had been caused by the old lizard, to carry him over the mountain, he had his doubts on how soft the landing would be. Still, having lost his trusted Dragonslayer there was nothing he could do but trust in the pale dragon that he saw racing away towards the tall mountain he formerly had seemed to have received help from.

He shot through low clouds clinging to higher peaks, and over the snow laden tree tops filling up a valley before nearly skimming a mountain ridge, which had been freed of its white cloth by the storm winds. Missing the bare stone by a hand width, with his prosthetic making sparks fly as they brushed with the rocks. After his near miss of sudden death, his tear filled eye saw no more snow cover the mountain sides slope in front of him. The land around him blurred into a black and dark nothing, until the lights of hopefully human habitation shone against the night sky. With unchanging zeal the summoned force pressed him forward right towards them. Nestled between several dark shapes, which he assumed to be further mountain peaks, this sign of civilization was kin to a bonfire of hopes for him.

He did not know if he should be happy of that, but he pushed the unbidden thought from his mind as he frantically searched for anything that could make his situation more favourable. Coming up empty. For the longer he travelled, the more convinced did he become that the dragon did not know just how fragile a human body truly was.

...

tbc

* * *

 **Pfuhhh! Originally this chapter had been planned to have been included into the 2nd chapter, but that would have been simply too long for my tastes, thus I cut it in two. Quite frankly I have no overview on what exactly happens where in that chapter and I fear that may have did a cut in the quality: missing words etc.**

 **So what happened: Guts was thrown directly into the "greeting" between Alduin and Paarthurnax as the former came out from the Time-Wound atop the Monahven = Throat of the World. I hope everyone licked the dragon battle, admittedly Guts didn´t have much place to shine - still he took already down two dragons! ... well heavily wounded them, at least enough for them to flee combat.**

 **You will have noticed that Alduin and Paarthy are quite a bit OOC, not that we really know enough about them to decide how they should be. My problem was that their characters ingame are rather bland, Ald doesn´t do much beside boasting and trashtalking, he still does here - I just gave him a bit more emotions. And wove quite a bit of story lore exposition into his and Paarth´s dialogue. Paarth too got an "extended" personality, I wanted to do something with the whole "I keep myself in check, but my urges to dominate are always there". Cornered by Alduin and four other dragons his iron shackles slip and he lets some Dovah out. Thus he starts to taunt Mirmulnir and gets a bit of a break down.**

 **Hope I portrayed this passably well.**

 **Always found it strange that Paarthy waited on the peak yet did nothing to keep Alduin from wrecking havoc on Skyrim, kinda contradictory. Not that I don´t understand him, he after all has no chance against Alduin by himself. Still, in that case one would hardly wait for the guy whose downfall you caused "at the door" so to speak? So I missed their epic showdown ingame, no tale how he had suffered grievous wounds or hid himself when Alduin came back, nothing. I mean what did they do? Alduin comes out from the time wound, nods to Paarthy and flies off? And the next thing he does is torching Helgen?**

 **Guts is now ... safely deposited on the ground - in Skyrim as all of you would have guessed.**


	5. Unknown

**My thanks to all those who reviewed and favourited!**

* * *

 **Unknown**

* * *

 _"The justice of the cause is conspicuous; for what war is just which is necessary, and those arms are sacred from which we derive our only hope."_

\- Machiavelli (The Prince, 1513)

* * *

 **Skyrim, Fortress Town of Helgen, 17th of Last Seed:**

The Jerall Mountains, cleanly separating the Imperial Province of Skyrim from the Heartland of the Mede Empire, Cyrodiil, like silent colossus it is a natural bulwark of incredible effectiveness that demanded every army trying to cross them a hefty toll. Among them are counted the highest elevations of the Province of Cyrodiil, with their snow covered peaks they seem to dominate the northern region of the otherwise temperate land.

Bruma, the Snow City, serves as the last vestige of civilization on the Silver Road before the highlands and the backwaters of Skyrim, so the Imperials claim. Even though they would complain in the next sentence that the city is more Nord, than Nibenese and that the population is a drunken lot. In the years after the Oblivion Crisis, this opinion softened as more and more people born in Cyrodiil streamed towards the rebuilding city and the Nords seemed to finally embrace the unifying Imperial Pantheon, letting their barbaric ancestral gods finally fall into obscurity.

On the northern side of the Jerall mountain range, lies Skyrim, the so called "Fatherland" of the former Septim Empire and the "Old Kingdom from where the Nords erected the first human empire in Tamrielic history. The range stretches far into the interior of the northernmost province, ending in triangle with the Throat of the World, the highest mountain of Tamriel, at its point.

In ancient times this region belonged to the Nordic hold of Hrothgar. But that was before the Nordic Empire broke asunder. Torn apart by war both from within and from the outside when the Nord´s enemies jumped at the chance to tear chunks out of the wounded beast.

The nature of the region, dominated by snow capped peaks threatening to pierce the skies, just as well as threatening to bury all paths leading through them under countless avalanches, made it a nearly insurmountable hurdle for people to pass from one province into the other.

Naturally some seldom travelled goat paths and hunter trails existed throughout the mountains, but the single location where army hosts and caravans could cross over was the Pale Pass. A narrow and taxingly long mountain pass, like trench dug by giants, which allows the Silver Road from Cyrodiil to climb up the mountains and meander northwards through the Serpent´s Trail. Most famous for the subjugation of the Akaviri invaders under Reman of Cyrodiil in the year 1E 2703, and the exotic Cloud Ruler Temple that was built within its hollow.

It is a famous sight, even now that the forces of the Aldmeri Dominion had torn down its walls and desecrated its shrines. In a way a sign for the capitulation and past glory of the Empire.

To protect this important route, the different empires and other claimants to the territory throughout history, had to invest heavily into the stabilization of the region. In the south the Pale Pass opened up to the region of County Bruma, and the city served as a valiant guard against any invaders.

On its northern side however there existed no regulating force ever since the fall of Hrothgar hold. To compensate for this power vacuum countless fortifications had been built over the years; among them Fort Neugrad, at the northern opening of the Pale Pass, Fort Bloodlet Throne in the west, and most importantly the fortress town of Helgen, the first major settlement on the Silver Road north of the Jerall Mountains and the largest settlement in Skyrim south of Riften and Falkreath.

Legend has it, that the ancient Nord settlement predating the current town had been built upon the live buried elfin slaves which had been made to toil erecting its foundations.

* * *

A man, like those around him secluded behind iron bars, stirred from forced slumber. He was bound like the rest, yet slightly differently.

A bout of groaning, not of his own making, awoke him. Feeling shackles around his neck and wrist the man was cautious to hide his awakening from his captors, whoever they may be. Reigning in a person's natural response towards suddenly coming out of unconsciousness in a foreign environment, he kept his head lowered towards the floor and his eye closed so as to not arouse suspicion, even the most careful observer would had no chance to discern him having woken up but the involuntary minute jolt and tensing of his muscles upon rousing from the grasp of oblivion.

 _`Feels like lately I can´t stop blackening out all the time.´_

Careful, he forces open his only functioning eye´s heavy lid just enough to study his surroundings. Unmistakable solid walls surrounded him on five sides, though humidity had caused moss to grow in patches. In the left corner, half hidden within the shadows frown by torches somewhere outside his line of sight, a bucket to relieve himself stood. For a moment he pictured his one armed form swinging a bucket, of all things, over his head like a madman and wielding it into battle as a weapon.

Taunt chains led from his shackles into the wall behind him. One from a collar around his neck, an iron noose, another led to the cuff around his wrist. Finally under him was a patch of relatively fresh straw. Probably even put there just for him, as it looked clean, but the local humidity had already began to work on it.

He failed to see anything of note on his right side, lacking an eye in that direction.

Finally, his eye took in the perhaps most relevant information. He could not see much, due to not wanting to give away his awakening, thus he only saw the bottom bars of the metal grid taking the place of a door to his cell. While already having been heavily rusted over, he had no hopes of actually breaking through the thick bars, not without tools, and certainly not chained to the wall.

Where was that fairy when he needed him?

The Black Swordsman muses.

He did not know how long he kneeled like that on straw covered stone. But in this valuable time Guts learns that he is not alone in this place. Sometimes, from in front and beside him subdued voices call out to each other. Only to be shut up by the deep voice of a soldier, he knew too many to not recognize the tone of command.

Prisoners like him.

But Guts listens and learn, he notices how the tongue the other prisoners converse in with each other is one unknown to him, yet he understood them perfectly. The soldier too, used that same tongue, that was also spoken by the grey dragon who carried him through the storm.

An unknown tongue, an unknown people.

Unknown monsters and enemies.

An unknown fate.

Unknown.

* * *

General Tullius, supreme commander of the Imperial Legions stationed across the Imperial Province of Skyrim by the auspices and authority of the Tamrielic Emperor Titus Mede II, was raving.

He had taken over the position from the already old General Jonna, who had been called back to the Imperial City for not preventing this fiasco from rising its head in the first place. However not even the politicians of the Elder Council would harass General Jonna too much, lest even more veteran Legionnaires got wind of it and decided to change sides as well.

Having led the legions stationed in Skyrim back then to the south, reinforcing the badly battered army under the Emperor and having played a major role in securing total victory over the Dominion infidels, Jonna was counted among the heroes of the Battle of the Red Ring. Such a move would just further aggravate the dissent among those o so foolish and battle loving hinterlanders.

After back in the Imperial City the Grand Marshal had found him the perfect man to solve the ongoing clusterfuck that had reared its ugly head in the frozen province, he had faced one headache after another.

First was the climate, but that was just as expected. Nothing could be done about that. He had to admit though that he wanted few things more than to return to his estates in the Heartland.

Second was that the rebels didn´t simply want to keel over by themselves, sadly that had been as well just as expected, but at least something could be done about that.

Third was the ongoing unrest in the Reach, but at least the little savages were neither numerous nor courageous enough to attack imperial military installations or caravans with a substantial escort, and Jarl Igmund had proven himself competent enough to keep his settlements out of their hands. Tullius dared not fathom loudly what would happen if the Frosworn actually do take over one of the larger settlements. Depending on how effective the gag order would be the common Nord population of Skyrim would all run over to Windhelm and ask for Ulfric to come to the Reach, again!

The public image of the Mede Empire could stomach any further disgraces.

Finally, his fourth and most recent headache had manifested itself in the form of the weather. Somehow the forces of nature had thrown themselves onto the traitors side and had barred his path.

Thus he was now sitting in a hastily re-configured office in Helgen, brooding on his desk over the most recent reports with various maps of the province strewn across the table. Clean shaven face buried in his hands, mentally cursing Kynareth for her untimely winds. His ceremonial mithril armour hung in the far corner of the room from a stand. The light from the windows hitting it had it glow silvery, creating a nice contrast with the purple silk of the uniform beneath. He had taken it along to wear it on the eve of his triumphant return to the Imperial City, when he could parade the bound and gagged Ulfric through the streets.

He wasn´t alone in his brooding. On the other side of the table opposite him stood the praefect commanding the forces garrisoned in Helgen, clad in the steel armor of his station, a man of 36 summers with the olive skin of Cyrodiil on a broad face and a military short cut mop of black hair. Perhaps the Breton phrase - "Face of potato, and half as clever", would describe him best. For while his loyalty was without doubt, so was his simple mindedness. He simply had no political feeling and as he had no outstanding military achievements to his name either he would never climb up to the position of legate. Unless he managed to marry rich and buy the position. A typical career Legionnaire who grew up in the Colovian region of old Cyrod with horror stories of the Great War and had fallen in love with the public image of the Legion.

The other person in the room stood like a silent and dark column in the room. He was the general´s liason to the Penitus Oculatus, the military spy organization which had replaced the Blades after their eradication at the hands of the Thalmor swines.

"Alright, so Operation Hooked Arrow didn´t work out. The Empire´s victory was foiled by a gods forsaken storm. Thoughts?"

"General Tullius, Sir. None could anticipate this happening, not even the battlemage´s intensive scrying was able to predict this meteorological development."

The secret agent barked out.

"Though they were here for the better part of a month. How bloody useless are they?"

The praefect interjected under his breath before continuing in a louder voice.

"I just came down from cheeking if we still haven´t received any reports from Legates Hrollod and Fasendil. So far not notice if they went ahead with their parts of the plan."

Truly the surprising storm over the Jerall Mountains was a disaster for the Legion. Through careful manoeuvring the Penitus Oculatus had managed to incite several covens of outlaws and mages to inhabit Fort Amol after the rebel forces had ousted the imperial garrison. It had been a great success and apart from stopping the rebel´s advance into central Skyrim cold it also had been designed with the express purpose of luring out Ulfric Stormcloak himself. After all his psychological profile heavily suggested that he would try to gain further fame by taking a key role in the subjugation of the rogue mage-forces. A repeat of Markath, where his skill with the fabled Voice had brought him fame and boosted the morale of his war band.

"Praefect, you know these regions better than I do. If we ignore any complaints Duke Balgruuf may have, is there a way to get to Darkwater Crossing in time?"

"Yes, Sir. If an expedition takes the road following the southern shore of the White River around the Throat of the World and crosses it here..."

He indicates the bend in the White River after the Valtheim Towers with his finger.

"... they then can resupply and change horses in Fort Gallow´s Rock, if it is still in our hands by that time. They will then head west will then have to cross the White River after it united with the Darkwater River, and then cross the volcanic marshes. As we can´t know the rebel´s exact route they will have to cooperate with our forces in Eastmarsh hold to find them. That way I see a chance that our legionnaires could hit Jarl Ulfric´s party as they retreat back to Windhelm."

"Thank you Praefect, that was a valuable input you gave me. Well done, legionnaire, I´m going to need a bit of time to integrate it in my strategy. I might need your expertise again, but in the meantime take care of the two intruders we apprehended in the night prior. If they truly are rebel scouts they might actually have amassed a sizeable force nearby. Dismissed!"

The legionnaire saluted by hitting his steel chest-plate with a fist before turning around and leaving, having effectively been thrown out from his own office. Though at least the soldier had felt happy about his praise. The heavy door fell closed behind him after giving Tullius a glimpse of the guards manning the corridor before he turned to the Penitus Oculatus agent who had stood ramrod straight and still, safely in the background while he had questioned the praefect.

"Weeks of planning went down the damned Niben!"

In truth the praefects plan was only sound in theory, indeed if Tullius gave out the message right know to the garrison of Gallow´s Rock that they should prepare a safe crossing for an expedition, then a cavalry squad might have indeed have had a chance to cut through the eastern marshes in time to capture Ulfric on the road back to Windhelm.

That is if Gallow´s Rock is still held by imperial forces.

That is if the squad didn´t get pulverized by giants housing in Cradlecrush Rock.

That is if the Stormcloak detachment truly travelled from Darkwater Crossing to Windhelm on the road. In that case Legate Hrollod might even fetch Ulfric himself. Hopefully behead him still on the place instead of keeping him captive, for fear that the small remnants of the Eastmarsh force would be overrun by Stormcloak rebels. Alternatively the murderer of the High King could expand his travels and might even head to Riften to meet with the local duchess.

The same problem also posed itself in the scenario that they did in fact managed to snatch him. Being unable to apprehend Ulfric near Darkwater Crossing, but only further north would force the punitive force to travel through southern Eastmarsh and the more settled regions of the Rift before being able to link up with Legate Fasendil´s soldiers in the Rift´s south. Fasendil himself couldn´t even come to their aid, as it was vital for the safety of the Pale Pass to guard the entrance to the mountain pass leading through the Jerall Mountains south of the Throat. However the continued existence of that Legion force was also in question if there truly was a Stormcloak presence in said pass.

"Sir? Permission to speak, Sir?"

The agent asked.

"Go ahead."

He retorted gruffly.

"Since our presence in the hold of Whiterun is limited we cannot be sure, but there are reports with indications of a substantial rebel presence near the feet of the Throat of the World along the road the praefect indicated."

"I see."

So he truly could not anticipate success from rerouting his expedition through the southern Whiterun road. Not only would that fool Balgruuf complain incessantly for suddenly trespassing on his lands, but if there were enemy troops there he also could not gamble on them being drunk enough on that swill they called mead to not notice them when passing by.

Nor could he hope to cross the mountains. Over the previous days he had send several scouts out to map a viable route, but most had never returned. Either they fell prey either to the cold, the witches, trolls, vampires or other scum that littered those snowed over mountains. Others had come back reporting the impassability of any known path.

As fate willed it, just that night some idiot also had the nerve to intrude into the fortress town and then was clumsy enough to actually crash through some families home. Chances are that the Stormcloaks actually managed to cross the passes of the Jerall Mountains south of the Throat of the World and that the guy was one of their spies. Everything else would be too great a coincidence, and experience taught Tullius to meet such concepts with outmost distrust.

Tullius slumped down some in his stool, cursing, while massaging his aching head.

When he had taken over the position of Military Governor of Skyrim, the Stormcloaks had ousted the Legion troops stationed in the eastern hold capitals, and had been bearing down on Morthal. Like a forest fire they spread across the east and in all the other holds clear signs shoved the forming of independent groups with their common cause.

Within days the news had spread and like wolves idiots had flocked to his banner, running into the hills and forming war bands with the intentions to link up with each other and ultimately Ulfric and his original mercenary band in Eastmarsh itself. Then the "Old Holds" in the east had thrown their lot in with him, rebelling against the Ruby Throne.

He had effectively managed to put a stop to the avalanche that the Stormcloaks had become. A feat he sadly could not consider all that noteworthy, as the warriors the Stormcloaks could field were very limited. A few thousands at most, including the guards needed to garrison the cities and forts and other defensive installations across province´s east.

What was perhaps far more important, was that he had managed to reconnect and supply the remaining loyalist forces holding out in camps hidden within the rebel duchies. That those troops had been able to stage counter attacks and such had proven itself invaluable to keep the rebel forces bound in their positions, keeping them from amassing any sizeable force to attack new targets.

It had been a good run so far, until know.

"By the Eight, damn the Thalmor, damn the Ulfric and his rabble."

* * *

His landing was all but soft. It could be called rough, others might have called it bone jarring. The pale dragon´s magic had shot him forward, with impunity he crossed over mountain ridges and peaks, their stones where sharp enough to shred a human´s body into tiny pieces. At their sight he was helpless to stir around or stop, a mere passenger on the summoned wind-stream. Then nothing ...

Where once mountain cliffs threatened to leave nothing but a bloody smudge of viscera of him, there was suddenly a void beneath around him. For but a moment before from the darkness beneath him a roofed wall nearly takes off his feet.

Lights through window glass, ...

torches in the street, ...

the hum of voices, barking of dogs and general hubbub of a human settlement fell onto him.

Then straw above wood. In the heat of the moment he didn´t have time to think of how the impact compared to hitting a river´s waves after falling from a cliff with an unconscious passenger.

Finally hard wood.

Grumbling to himself, and thus adding his own personal brand to the chaos erupting around him, he tries to extract himself from the wreckage around him.

"Ah, shit! That hurts!"

Careful not to aggravate any of his superficial and internal injuries and broken bones, which he had sustained since having been dropped from the overgrown bird´s grip, he wrenched himself out of the splintered wood he came to be stuck between. For all his misery he tries to found something positive to have happened.

"But hey, I didn´t faint! That should be a good thing, doesn´t it?"

Among the cacophony of voices around him, Guts picked out some curse or another. Its meaning was lost on him, its intention was well conveyed however. And surely when he looked up from leaning on his arm towards his unwilling host, the boar-sized barrel held overhead by the red faced man towering over him didn´t prophesize anything good for him.

He was tired, too tired.

His numerous battles against the Apostle and the torture he had been subjected through the mere presence of the God Hand somehow didn´t afflict him anymore. Somehow ... one of the many people and times he had not been fully aware off must have healed him from that ordeal. Or perhaps more time had passed than he was aware off?

Either way, the aerial battle between flying lizards and his own involvement had unmade his miraculous recovery. Though he had been healed several times by the dragon´s magic, the cycle of destruction and reconstruction had taxed his body.

He was tired, too tired.

"I did jinx myself, didn´t I?"

With these words his world turned dark. The loud *thunk* which he and the barrel with him caused when they hit the wooden floor was already lost to him.

 **...**

tbc

 **AN:**

 **In the Roman Legions a legate actually commanded a whole legion, (in the ingame book "The Great War", this is proven by the author, a legate, writing how he commanded the 10th Legion. I kept this and put the general in a position commanding several Legions. As is portrayed in "The Great War", where both Hammerfell and Skyrim had general leading several legions. This fits with the ingame Book "The Holds of Skyrim", the Tullius is said to command** **all the legions** **in Skyrim from Castle Dour.**

 **Roman legions had between 5000 - 6000 legionnaires, depending on the time and overall state of the Roman Empire. The Mede Empire is continuous plagued by bad luck: first the Oblivion Crisis - followed by internal warfare over the Ruby Throne, then the eruption of Red Mountain, the secession of Argonia, the Great War and before that the secessions of Elsweyr, Summerset and Valenwood, then the Reachman Rebellion + Markath Incident and finally the Stormcloak Rebellion. Because of that I put the troop strength of the legions at an even smaller number.**

 **This means that since there are ten legates listed in Skyrim, there should be ten legions stationed across Skyrim! Each at roughly 4000 leg-s strong, thus there should be an overall imperial presence of roughly 40.000 leg-s in Skyrim. Ideally, at least as stated in the chapter. That number will soon decrease.**

 **Yes, I know that the "lords" of Skyrim are called Jarls, but Tullius and some other Imperials often ridiculed that title and called them "Nord Kings", which is a mocking title as a look at the other provinces will show you: each of the other provinces is ruled by a king who swore fealty to the emperor, in turn the smaller regions are ruled by dukes, for example Vvardenfell in Morrowind had a duke ruling it. Beneath them come the counties, like Bruma, Skingrad etc. So the regular hierarchy of every imperial province has a king at the top, then dukes, etc - from the imperial viewpoint at least! The different nations may have other termini, for example Jarls, who historically in TES were more like independent kings than anything. Thus the "king" of Skyrim is also called High King, which in turn is probably only a translated title that came about as the Cyrodiilic language became the mainstream.**


	6. Doomsday

**Warning for torture in this chapter - Hey! It IS a Guts is "introduced" to the local government chapter, as such some torture is nearly obligatory according to Berserk canon.**

 **Apart from deleting the last part of this chapter I also posted a new 1st chapter as a prologue to the story. Furthermore I will post new chapters in the following days.**

* * *

 **Doomsday**

* * *

 _"_ _My cousin's out fighting dragons and what do I get? Guard duty."_

-Guards of Skyrim, those not knowing how happy they should be!

* * *

 **Skyrim, Fortress Town of Helgen, 18th of Last Seed:**

When his head is pulled out of the water again, the air filling his lungs felt soothing like a blessing. A second breath wasn´t allowed to him by his torturers, as he was dunked under again immediately. To bring his current plight to an end he purposely exhaled, causing bubbles to ascend to the surface. As his bane didn´t want him to dead just yet he quickly pulled his head out of the water casket.

"What, over so soon? I hoped to wash off all that blood."

The torture, which had begun after two leather skirt-wearing soldiers had shot green-glowing globs of light at him, continued unabated. Those lights had somehow robbed him of any control over his body, preventing him to move and had made it easy for the two hooded mooks to drag him down the hall into the torture chamber.

He had been able to see, hear and even feel. But he had been unable to move, imprisoned in his own flesh and blood, impotent to affect his fate, not even able to struggle or trash talk them.

They didn´t even have had the decency to fall for his act of being still out of it and enter the cell, rather they opted to shoot him through the bars of the door.

"Let´s start of easy, how did you manage to get into the this cesspit of a town and the keep?"

Afterwards the two warlocks had retreated into a large metal cage outfitted with a bar counter. He saw them take in their meal in safety over there calmly while he was left in the not so tender mercies of a muscular balding mook, who tried to compensate for his balding by having ridiculously long hair for a soldier and a hooded aging ass who styled himself the mysterious torture master questioning him whenever the aforementioned balding mook wasn´t dishing out some punishment onto him.

The ridiculous thing was that, mind you it wasn´t his first time tortured in a dungeon, differently from other times he didn´t even know what they had against him. Not too long ago he though back on his last moments before waking up in the cell, but surely falling through once roof didn´t warrant this.

"I rode a dragon, he sneezed and I fell off."

"... Wow, that´s actually quite a creative story. Far better than `I was out hunting at night and fell of the cliff´, or somethin´. You might be able to sell that story to one of the superstitious barbarians of this land, but seriously? Do I appear that daft to you?"

"Well, you are wearing freakin´ skirts."

The old man kept himself from being too confused at the weak jab, for while the fashions of each of the Empire´s provinces were quite distinct, even his homelands tendency to wear vibrant colours is still mocked from time to time as looking like a wandering circus by people outside of High Rock. Especially the more dismal Nords tend to do so, on the other hand those often still wore pelts and furs like savages, and the less said about the bug carapace wearing Dark Elves the better. So while the native fashion might still attract criticism, the uniform of the Ruby Ranks didn´t.

So he had been surprised, something he in hindsight found he shouldn´t have been considering the information he had received on this particular specimen.

"Your eyesight is most impressive. However let me educate your worthless self on Tamrielic dress code, it is considered appropriate for legionnaires. Someone from another continent might be confused, I admit, oh great Black Swordsman."

"You, how do you know that?"

"Your pixie friend has been most talkative, he already told us everything. Quite frankly I don´t want to know much from you, just a tiny morsel of how you came to crush into this town?"

The hooded torturer traced a dagger across his forehead and temple around his healthy eye, then all the way down his neck.

"I told ya already. Where is that little insect now?"

"Their kind is quite a rarity, doesn´t show itself before people often. I got quite a good price for it from our local alchemist. By now it´s probably in even tinier pieces."

He jingled a purse he had grabbed his belt, it was full of coin by the sound of it.

Guts tensed.

"Hahahaha! ... The bug had it coming for him. Still, I hoped his constant chatter could help me keep awake during our talk."

At a wink of the hooded creep, the balding creep, who compensated for it with long hair reaching down all the way to the shoulders, dunked him into the water basin. He was already growing sick of it, pain he could deal with. Sadly those guys proved to be more creative than any of the torturers he met until know. For when he thought as such, lightning hit the water, sending a jolt through him that caused him to wrench free of the torturer´s assistant before crumbling onto the wet stone.

"It´s quite a shame that I´m not left with much time to work with you. Normally I would like to bury you into the wall and only leave the part of your mouth uncovered. Unable to move, hardly able to hear. We´ll even keep you from sleeping. You see, with your past you probably have the constitution to resist physical pain. And you proved this. Compliments are in order, I guess. It really is a shame I am left wanting for time. If I at least had some proper tools to work on your body. You see with someone like you who doesn´t break immediately I could try out some funny things. Like lowering you onto a broad pike and watch how your own weight drives it up your ass, slowwwly. Alas! Neither time nor tools. So do kindly forgive me if my methods seem quite crude."

"Don´t worry, your giving me some good ideas on how to kill you."

"Ahhh, no worries there. It won´t come to that. Once my report climbs high enough, you´re going to be shipped off to the capital. They´ll take good care of you."

The Breton smiled at the warriors bravado, if he would have gotten a septim for every death threat he received he´d have already retired.

"Torture is like psychology. You need to find out what makes the other tick. ..."

He drives slick darts into the back of Guts´ legs, each one nearer to the back of the knee-joint. The flesh around them burned unnaturally and he assumed they were poisoned somehow.

"...You warriors are always so concerned with your body not becoming impaired. Understandable, after all you are good for nothings the instant you can´t fight anymore. So, how did you come over the walls?"

Apparently having no answer that would make him content, or unwilling to give up his secrets the prisoner just sighted and let his lone eye wander across the torture room until it remained stuck on a certain cage and its occupant. Additional pieces of the already morbid room the old legionnaire had procured at the beginning of his stint in Helgen just to be inducing fear in anyone gracing his presence down here.

"That guy in the cage over there, he looks kinda dead."

"Oh him. I lost the keys to that some time ago. Poor guy, he screamed for weeks before he succumbed to starvation."

"While that doesn´t really inspires much confidence in your tidiness, why did he starve? It´s a damn cage."

"Well, without key I can´t take him out, so he was of no further use for me. But don´t change the subject now, we were just talking about you. But it seems I was going to easy on the big bad monster hunter."

Guts was pulled to his feet, as every time after he was wounded they healed him with some light from their hands ... "magic", he found no better word for it, before several soldiers all in the same red and brown leather armour strung him up, so he hung down from the ceiling in the middle of the torture room. Legs up, with his head dangling above the floor and soon to be red with his own blood. Weights were attached to his arms as well, threatening to strain and stretch the joints and muscles. Yeah, those guys weren´t bad at their job. They weren´t imps either! To think that he would come across torturers that weren´t misshapen imps! Seemingly things were really different when being in another ... continent.

The thought was very disconcerting to him. For while he couldn´t call the lands he travelled home, they were still everything he knew.

"Did you know, that in the Legion Torturer´s Guide to the Races, thirty-four torture methods specific to the Khajiits are listed? Argonian exclusive tortures count seventy-one methods. However, there is a single method applying to both races, ... and that is to, one by one, tear out every single bit of hair or scale from their bodies."

Nearly as disconcerting that he couldn´t rile them up. He didn´t cried out, not even as they went ahead with skinning his legs by means of a searing knife, but that didn´t seem to bother them all that much. Seems like they really simply were content to test new things out.

"By the way, let me rest your worries. Once your small friend told me how you´re haunted by vengeful spirits each night because of your brand, I put in a request for some battlemages to ward off these corridors."

"So you believe in ghosts, demons and monsters but not in dragons?"

"Sure I do, after all Daedra and all their ilk as well as ghosts actually can be found. Whereas dragons just turn up in fairytales and legends. Even if they did exist once, they would be all dead by now, with a whole branch of the military dedicated to their extinction and all."

A red hot dart was fitfully shoved into his shoulder, digging into his flesh with a hiss. Unexpectedly and abruptly his body was suffused in lightning. It was channelled inside of him through the a variety of tools buried in his body and the water from the prior torment caused it to flow over his drenched upper body. On the first occasion the electric agony subsided, Guts noticed that he had bitten his tongue while screaming, before they continued over and over.

"Now let´s try that out again after applying spells on you that increase the sensitivity of your nerves, that means it´ll heighten the pain as well as a fear spell. Robust specimen are such fun! I can try out so many things before they break! By the way do I have to thank whoever put this rune into your skin for your pain resilience? Or was it just your shit life that made you this tough?"

The torture master spoke mockingly, his teeth flashing from beneath the shadows of his hood as bluish light washed over Guts battered body. The old Breton saw how the foreign warrior´s body tensed, readying itself for the pain it had withstood before, but he wanted to stay unpredictable. Torture after all was so much more a game of wits than just crudely mistreating another. Even if his family couldn´t see that.

*BOOONK*

The sound came from somewhere behind Guts, who couldn´t see it.

...

Excruciating, white hot pain erupted from his lower back.

The torturer had taken a iron rake, glowing orange from the coal´s heat. He deliberately hit the stone with the iron tip, trying to increase the prisoner´s anxiousness by causing noises he could not figure out the source. After some time, when the fear spell would have reached its greatest effect, and the warrior was flinching at the smallest noises he made, the torturer violently struck the prisoner´s back.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAARRGHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Sinking in the glowing points into the scarred flesh before tucking the rake across the whole back, leaving behind eight sizzling tears of burnt flesh. Silently he gave the rake back to his assistant, he wanted to keep his victim fearing another sudden strike with the rake.

"Give me the flail, would you?"

He added, while watching out for treacherous movements of the prisoner.

"Or perhaps the whip?"

"No not that one, the nine tailed with the thorns."

"Here." The torturer´s assistant said while handing him the whip. Quickly he added as he had been instructed beforehand.

"By the way, Sir, I still need your approval of the list of prisoners scheduled for execution later today to make room for the new convicts."

"Yeah, sure, sure."

Again the old soldier watched out for traitorous body language, though he assumed by now even this warrior was in so much pain that he wouldn´t pay much attention to his carefully constructed mind games.

"Now then, ready to spare yourself the pain and tell me what I wanna know?"

"Haa ... haa, ok, ok. You see ... there was that dragon and, ..."

*KACHINK!* The sound and feel of the whip´s nine tails ripping open his skin interrupted his words. The old Breton continued for some time, tearing out bloody chunks from his flesh and skin until the bloodied white of his ribcage had become visible.

"Hahh. Oh well, that´s enough for one day. Heal him up, but also feed him a poison so he doesn´t regain too much of his strength."

Perhaps they could implement a good legionnaire versus bad legionnaire strategy tomorrow?

* * *

Having been returned to his own dingy three walls and metal grate some unknown time later, Guts now was free to inspect his surroundings when before he was constrained by feinting unconsciousness or being under the paralyzing effect of some sort of "magic".

Not that he was really free of troubles as he was now, the prolonged torture had wrecked his body as their ability to heal his victims enabled the torturer to extremes that would have normally been deadly and counterproductive to his chosen profession. Furthermore the potion that they had forced down his throat had made him nauseous and feeling ill to the point of retching. Probably some fancy way to deprive him off sleep and weaken him even further for future interrogations.

"So, had a good day, neighbour?"

A voice from beyond the stone walls separating the numerous cells cut through his pain addled thoughts.

"Wait until your turn if you´re curious."

The Black Swordsman bit back in pain-born-rage .

"Sheesh, ... I hoped to take your mind off things. Just the other day, the Stormcloak three cells down the row for example was quite happy to recount how he braved his torture. Not that we didn´t know already, he chanted praises to their god Talos all the while. Well, at least until they gagged him. What are you in for anyway?"

Slowly control of Guts limbs crept back into them after so many turns of being hurt and then quickly healed again. Added to that his brand had erupted into a near constant ache ever since waking up, perhaps even before but he assumed having been thrown into an aerial battle between dragons he had failed to notice or simply attributed it to the presence of the dragons themselves.

"For illegal trespassing."

"That´s actually quite a common tale among our local merry band of prisoners. Apparently everyone without credentials has been incarcerated on suspicion of being a rebel spy or collaborator. I for one was caught while illegally crossing the border. Apparently I´m not the only one that deserves torture and decapitation for that crime nowadays."

A deep voice from further down the hall, chose to comment on this.

"Blame zat icebrain-monkey Marukh ent his `guilty until proven innocent´ crap! Damned Imps! They should all clog zeir lungs in ze Deadlands!"

His snarled words got some light laughs comments from other prisoners huddling in the shadows of their cells along the corridor.

"Khajiit thinks you couldn´t have expressed yourself better."

"Wad´ya mean, ya Thalmor-boot-licking pussy?!"

The Nord retorted in suspicious but still honest confusion.

"SSSHIIIISHHHHH!..." A loud cat like hiss tore down the array of cells. "Khajiit. is not. touching. Thalmor. ever!"

"Since ... ?" Came the sceptical reply immediately.

"Now, now. Please cease this. Aren´t we all brothers and sisters in our binds now?"

Conversation ended not long after, the creeping silence however was terminally broken when the balding oaf of a assistant torturer´s studded leather boots were scrapping across the damp floor, alerting all of his coming.

"You bastard! Let me out! What´ll you do if I chew through this cage myself?! This is an abuse of the rights of endangered species! Your people even said yourselves that you never saw a fairy like me!"

The loud and child like outcries of indignation clearly showed that he wasn´t alone. Apparently this army´s torturer had lied to Guts, though he wasn´t all that sure if he should be happy or not about knowing his most loyal companion of the past weeks had not found himself cut up into ingredients.

The fairy came enclosed in a bird cage, which the legionnaire hung from the ceiling right in front of Guts cell before leaving all the while Puck berated him.

"Damned lying fox, telling me your about to be cooked."

Guts was saying while sitting up as much as his binds allowed him, actions which immediately caused Puck to stop futilely gnawing the iron bars of his cage and twirl around facing his human friend.

"Guts! Guts! Nice to see you ... you DAMN JERK! That´s a dungeon isn´t it? Just how could you end up captured again already?! Where are we anyway? That bastard I´ll rip out his last hairs, ..."

Tearing his face away from trying to slip through the bars the little fairy jumps back on his feet waging his fist into the direction of the torture chamber comically.

" ... take that you balding idiot!"

Afterwards he slumped down onto the floor of his cage and restarted to prattle on, filling the once silent corridor with his young voice.

"Those evil guys have magic I haven´t seen ever before! Did you see it already? I haven´t seen a human do real magic in ages! And what was that about stuffing me into a iron jar?! What´s up with that? Wasn´t being kidnapped by grey aliens awful enough? Huh? What am I even talking about? Ewwwww, didn´t know you were into bondage. ..."

"You little..."

"... So how come we´re here again? I remember nothing after the dragon swallowed both of us, and then I wake up from my bed being shaken, I hit my head and only woke up again when those DAMNED JERKS let me out from the jar. They asked me lots of stupid things and always threatened to pluck off my wings with pincers, were measuring me with calipers, CALIPERS you hear me?! ..."

The guy beside Guts whispered.

"And you managed to travel with that thing without killing it?"

"Ohh, I tried. I did."

He answered in dejectedly.

" ... And then, and then they asked me how you came into this city, town whatever. What was its name again? They said it but I don´t remember anymore, just the calipers. And when I said I didn´t know they looked at me as if I had a demon fox shoved into my gut, IT WAS AWFULL! I mean how should I know what you´re up to while I was sleeping? And ..."

He never got to finish before he was rudely interrupted...

"Oh, for Mara´s sake, someone SHUT UP THAT TWERP!"

but he avenged himself with gusto.

"WHAT`S IT TO YOU, you horker-sucking cow-chucker!"

Silenced followed in the insults wake, some wondering about their meaning, others about how this fairy would know more traditional Nordic insults. Just for a moment though, as soon some erupted into uncontrolled laughter while the Nord in question had his own opinion to bring forth vocally in rage tones, throwing his gaunt form against the metal grate sealing his stone cell.

"What did you call me? You little shit stain, I´ll grind you down into ..."

"SHUT UP BACK THERE!"

The legionnaires arching-lightning supported call to order finally put an end to this episode of their prison life. Though it was ignored just scant minutes later when a fairy´s body recovered from being shocked.

Now in a normal volume of conversation he informed his human friend and short time companion.

"Oh yeah, I nearly forgot. Becchi´s gone. Your sword too."

Rolling his eye at the inconcrete information he asked for clarification.

"Whaddya mean? Did it grow legs?"

"I don´t know about the Behelit, but I´m sure swords can´t do that, right? They just weren´t around when I myself was found among your things. They asked me lots of questions about your equipment about those so I figured they didn´t get them."

"I see. I knew about my sword, lost it while coming here. But that Varga´s Behelit wasn´t with my things is troubling."

The discussion ground to a halt after that. What needed to be said was said, and the other prisoners didn´t seem to fancy much discussion either. Everyone much more preferring to wallow in their own self pity. Guts, too was deeply immersed into his own thoughts. Leaning back against the wall and trying to get into an as comfortable position on the straw as possible his mind drifted to the nature of the reality around him.

For all its strangeness, this ... wasn´t the afterlife. Not one promised by the faith, nor the one prophesized by Griffith. It wasn´t like Guts had given much thought to the afterlife when alive, after all he had been and is - busy ferrying over his enemies. But unless the world they lived in truly was Hell itself as some proclaimed, he was still among the living. That or it was just his special corner of Hell, who knows? Back then, when the labyrinthine realm of the God Hand receded and he fell towards the maelstrom of Hell, did the dragon there save him, or did it kill him? For a moment he heard thousands upon thousands of voices screaming for him to join them in their torment. An illusion? Simulating what he lost? To heap some further misery and pain upon his mistreated soul and break his spirit, yes that sounded like the most plausible of things. Was this Hell´s torture method? A little corner of Hell just for him, it had a nice ring to it.

He snickered, the half healed wounds on his face twitching in mild agony at the movement.

So it was all a dream, a nightmare even?

Probably, even if that insect chatterbox is now not missing anymore.

 _But, what if it is real ...?_

If somehow, beyond reason or belief, there was some slight chance that it was truly _real_ ...

* * *

Tullius was thundering into the headquarters of the battlemage corps present in Helgen. The heavy door was thrown open, nearly crushing some poor sod on the other side and shocking all others to attention. He ignored them all and accosted the highest ranked, who was shouting around orders of his own.

"By the Eight! How in Oblivion is there an incursion of revenants in the middle of town?!"

The even older Nibenese battlemage answered by way of explanation after turning away from the gel screens held aloft by red silk ribbons he had been studying.

"Because of Oblivion seemingly. Somehow the critical mass of the Akatoshian-Reinforced-Mundial-Limen was circumvented in an unforseen spontaneous action. I have no other explanation how else there could be such an influx of ethereal ghosts without a semi-large scale ritual involved. There is no indication whatsoever that necromantic schemata were engraved into the courtyard without us noticing, so the reason must lie on the other side!"

"Cohort Battlemage, how about that prisoner that Mongall wanted guarded by battlemages because of him being cursed allegedly?"

A random battlemage interjects.

"Nonsense!" Their leader dismisses him heatedly. "That supposed summoning-rune curse certainly might send out a calling, but without a portal there just. is. no. planar-porting!"

Before continuing in a more scholarly tone before ending in a conspiratorial whisper.

"If there would have been an anomaly large influx of wild magicka, maybe. But even then a breach in the limen would have opened in the dungeons, not half the city away. Actually, ... what if he wasn´t alone? The execution site is roughly in the middle of the town, the recent deaths would have caused a natural flux into the Dreamsleeve, opening the probability of a backflow ... everything would make sense if there are others with a similar summoning-rune crafted into their skin in town!"

"Are you telling me that some unknown trespasser we caught is working in conjecture with several others still at large and that they served as anchors for a town sized ritual?!"

The general interrogated him on his thesis.

"I have no other way to explain all that occurs with the limited data I possess at the moment, ... General."

His words were hunted and everything else be might have wanted to say silenced by an outcry from further back in the room.

"Sirs! The aerial-proximity-meter has just been breached by an unidentified flying object exceeding the allowed parameters by a ... a huge amount."

The Imperial Battlemage was looking at "the thing" through possipoints, but had to blink between empty blinks to get rid of the mind-melding snapshots he did not dare voice to his superiors.

* * *

The day had come and went, unseen by those fellows buried beneath Helgen Keep. In the imperial dungeons the only way to count time was through the rhythm of meagre meals, and those could be nothing but a ruse of their tormentor, lulling them into a false security.

Lines of new prisoners had been led cuffed into the cells, old inmates having been led out towards their fate to make room. Some went along silent and stoic, others not so much. Stiff faced executioners in red led them out to the block, two for each inmate. Guts and Puck saw them defilade in front of their own prisons, with wonder and curiosity they observed the humans of varying skin colour and form but in their midst were those who could not be mistaken for humans. Bipedal cats, one early bit of a legionnaire´s fingers off, before a sheathed gladius to the head made the cat compliant, as well as two lizards of the same posture, while among both the soldiers and the prisoners walked humans with green skin and boar tusks.

Guts nearly believed it all to be a dream again.

Others were led inside and chained up, grey skinned and red eyed devils, things that looked like humans in all but their narrow faces and pointed ears. Gold skinned fallen nobles that were as tall as Zodd.

One of them replacing the guy just beside him.

Fantasia at its finest, with a sleeping fairy leading the pack.

And he wondered why no one believed him on the matter of dragons.

Dragons - Dragonslayer

He had lost it. His weapon, his sword. Another snicker grew within his throat and drew his face into a grimace, having fresh blood leak from it.

None but him would call that monstrous thing he swung in wild abandon a sword.

Still it was his, that blade that had bathed in the agony, misery, hate and the curses the soon to be dead spit out in their last moments. It shredded through them all, so many monster, wicked spirits drawn to his cursed self and ... humans.

He slew them, since the Eclipse two years ago, with that blade of his he slaughtered the ghosts haunting him.

He slaughtered the demons he hunted for hunting him.

And now ... and now even though the lost his weapon he would continue to fight his new enemies whatever they would turn out to be. For as long as this hand of his still could grasp a sword he simply refused to kick back and disappear.

His home is within the fields of battle, no matter where, no matter against whom, wherever blood is spilt and sparks fly from contests of arms and skill illuminating the darkness, wherever the fighting is fiercest, that - that is where his home lies. In the end he is born from and lives in conflict.

Once he had lived only for livings sake, after having killed Gambino he was left with nothing else. The irony, that it had been Griffith and his mercenaries of all people that had drawn him out from that quiet corner only to heap unimaginable misery upon his head, was not lost on him. On that fateful day, on which Griffith had said that his friend could be no one lesser than an equal him, he had realised that living for someone else wasn´t enough for him anymore either. Finally this kind of empty existence, had truly become unacceptable for him. Just existing, for no reason and to no goal that was something he could bear no longer. Then, what was he to do now?

All was calm, until it wasn´t.

* * *

Hadvar´s burly frame raced down the keep´s stairs, taking many steps at a single time. Nearly tearing a door out of its hinges, he takes a short cut to the interrogation room through an old storage and recreation facility. He took a breath before shooting across the last bit, he was glad it was even ground, before jumping down the last bit of stairs. An action which directly sends him tumbling into one of the battlemages on duty, as she had went to investigate the sudden sounds nearing her post. Her rightful indignation was quashed by Hadvar simply using her to right himself before showing her aside and shouting into the room. A mop of red hair all she would remember of him till her untimely death.

"By order of Cohort Battlemage Flavius Paulins, Head Torturer Mongall is to escort prisoner number 74 to the headquarters and evacuate the dungeons immediately!"

"What? Why?!"

A questioning shout erupted in answer from within the fenced in resting area of the torture room, where the team posted in the depths of Helgen had opened up some bottles of mead to pass the time.

"Just what would necessitate me being ordered to leave my prisoners unsupervised?"

Mongall´s, the head torturer´s of Helgen Keep hooded form extracted himself from the group of lazy soldiers of the ruby ranks.

Hadvar shouted, "Sir!" and gave the battlemage a hasty salute before elaborating hastily.

"Undead hordes are overrunning the town plaza. Evacuation of civilians is still ongoing but our ranks are in risk of being overrun as they only are equipped with hastily gathered silver ware as we don´t have enough battlemages on site to deal with such numbers. Because of that all the battlemages which were deployed into the dungeons are to join the fight in town."

"Impossible! What bullshit are you spouting?!"

But while the torturer refused to believe Hadvar´s words, the captain of the battlemages, a grizzled dark elf just as hooded as the other mage, reacted instantly.

"Calm yourself ol´Mongall! You two, ... " He pointed at two of his people. "... take the prisoner out of his cell immediately, and you, ..." Indicating another. "... fetch our mages from further down."

The entire discussion hadn´t gone unnoticed by the nearest prisoners in their cells either.

"Hey! What about us?" Some asked scared.

"If any ghosts or whatnot show up here while you all are away we´ll be sitting ducks!"

"This is a damned dungeon! By Jone, are you truly wanting to make Khajiit believe that there isn´t enough death and misery here that would spawn some?!"

But their words fell on the deaf ears of the Imperial soldiers, unmoved by their plight as they were already beginning to carry out their orders. All but one.

"We cannot release them Hadvar! Just what do you think would happen if it became known how we treat and catch convicts?!"

"Not all Nords are as thick-headed as Ulfric and his cloaks. Sir! You can´t just let them suffer through this."

"Sir, doesn´t matter if we leave them down here or kill them on the spot, they´ll come back possessed as undead or possessed."

Another of the mages added his own thoughts, perhaps agreeing with Hadvar, perhaps really having this concern.

Meanwhile Guts is being unchained and taken from his cell, the other prisoners rattle at the grates keeping them from freedom and may condemn them to death, shouting pleas at the legionnaires to release them during his passing by.

"By Mara! Alright, alright. Let them all out. But whoever tries to run will be killed on the spot!"

Heading their superior´s words, legionnaires stream into the narrow corridor, some unlocking the metal grates with keys while others yank out the prisoners and shove them forward. Guts too is pushed into the torture room, where others readied cuffs for his transport.

"Hey you, everything´s alright with you? Where are the others?"

The words came from the back of the cell lined corridor, Guts took them to be directed at the soldier who was send down to recall the patrols which headed deeper into the dungeons depths.

Bloody pain spread from his back, and Hell announced itself with a fireball thrown into the clogged down corridor. Screams of the burning tore through the surprised silence, but it was only the beginning as dark shapes seeped through stone into the chamber. Spilled blood animated itself and raced up the soldiers legs, enveloping their gasping heads like eldritch cowls before they forced themselves down the mortal´s throats. Chilling ectoplasma spreading to fill their insides and devious minds taking over.

Chaos starts suddenly, as was proven in this scenario as well.

Guts took his chance, he kicked back blindly. His foot burrowing itself into the soldier´s leather jerkin and throwing him back into the rabble that kept each other from advancing out of the corridor.

He shot forward, dove low to ram another red soldier and swipe him of his feet. His hand caught another who he used as a human shield against the green blobs that two sorcerers shot at him. His gladius turned up in Guts´ hands as he now hacked his way through the surprised legionnaires. The sharp blade slipped through light armoured chests easily and tore a bloody streak through the imperial ranks until Guts had closed the grate-door of the fenced in part of the torture chamber behind him and slaughtered the few remaining occupants. The sprite had told him it was here his equipment was kept, and if nothing else he needed his metallic arm.

Puck´s cage crashes against the far wall on the left, after the Mongall´s henchman had taken it from its place as he believed the fairy to hold valuable information on the ghosts just as his owner. In the ensuing confusion and mayhem, the cage is thrown against the wall, snapping open the fragile lock and Puck wrenches through the open space into freedom.

Quickly Guts rummages through the stuff stored within the counter for gear, in this action he fails to notice Mongall. The torturer reaches through the metal bars and unloads a lightning spell towards the renegade prisoner. Something he couldn´t tolerate on his watch. The electricity arched violently and surged through Guts´ already weakened body, sending him to cold stone ground convulsing uncontrollably and retching. Residual energy zaps about, hitting the metallic objects in the space.

Mongall quickly retreats from the uncontrolled magic, before once again reaching in to try and fry Guts with lightning. Before the mage can cast another bolt, Puck appears out of nowhere and using the centrifugal force from a pirouette throws a dagger at the surprised mage whose spell is then suddenly redirected towards the dagger, causing an explosion too close to his face for comfort.

While the whole room already stank from the smell of burning flesh, ozone now had added itself to the mix. With great effort Guts fought against the nausea and grabbed his prosthetic before bolting out of the cordoned off space. Drawing inspiration from memory, he charges the slightly frizzled and confused mage, lightning surged from his hands, right into the metal swung overhead that soaked it up greedily. Still charged with arching electricity the limb made of hardest steel came crushing down in a brutal curve, singing like a myriad song birds in a cage, right onto the torturer´s head, smashing it to pieces and boiling the man´s blood.

Cranial viscera and redness sprayed over the stone like from a blast. Yet the Breton wasn´t the only one who suffered from the charging attack, Guts too, no, most any other man, would have let go of their grip on the metal limb, shielding their naked hand with a dishcloth or not.

"Heh! Once again, you owe me one!"

Puck cried out while proudly puffing his tiny chest at having blended the enemy soldier, all the while remaining unknowing of the hellish spectre seeping out from between the stone walls.

"There you go."

Guts replied, as casually as he crushed the dark entity by punching it.

The two slip through the frantically casting mages, who gave their all to stem the advance of the undead. They mingled with the other prisoners and guards charging up the stairs, all in a frantic need to get away, people were trampled left and right yet no one paid any mind to it. Puck alone kept most of his wits, using a different trajectory than everyone else gave him some security from his fellow inmates and guards. Idly he wondered, for the amount of evil spirits haunting Guts seemed to have grown even more than usual, it couldn´t be seen at first since the local humans were quite able to decimate their numbers, and yet even more streamed into the torture room from the catacombs beneath, possessed even animal skeletons and the like. Throwing a last look into the room, he feels the grief and rancour clinging to the surrounding stone, and judges it the cause of Hell´s small invasion before getting out of the place as fast as his small wings could carry him.

* * *

"Sir, you have to evacuate immediately! The situation is most dire and the mages cannot anticipate how things will turn out."

"... Very well. Finalize the retreat and prompt complete evac. But come back once the ghosts have vanished!"

Once again Tullius turned back and addressed his officer.

"Praefect, holding this keep is of the outmost importance. Helgen was built in this location to put this whole region under imperial control, as such whoever rules here also rules the border region between Falkreath and Whiterun hold AND controls the Pale Pass. Taking it from us, the Cloaks hiding in the mountains would then be able to sweep in flanking manoeuvres into the unprotected sides of the adjacent holds. That way they would be able to launch attacks against Falkreath and later the Reach without antagonizing Duke Balgruuf and throwing away troops trying to attack Whiterun. You must not let it fall into their hands!"

He turned away, hastily mounting his horse before speeding out of the keep´s hidden backdoor. Over his shoulder he called back towards the praefect leading the remaining garrison of Helgen.

"I already send for reinforcements from Falkreath, just survive as long as this incursion from Oblivion lasts and then prepare against an assault from the rebels. May the Eight and the Emperor be with you!"

* * *

Beyond the gates of the keep, shambling corpses threatened to overrun the red clad soldier´s shieldwall and barricades, one of them seemed to be a sorcerer as well as he sprayed frost from his palm on the defenders. Already they had simply punched through the thick double gates separating the keep proper from the rest of the town, while overhead dark shapes of snarling faces contorted into monstrosities leered down on the defenders who kept them at bay with great circles of light and high held torches. Small blue tinted bottles kept changing hands, for what purpose he did not know, but it was clear that neither the magical repellents nor the mundane would last forever against this onslaught.

"How can this shit get any worse?"

Guts cursed half to himself and half to Puck who was hovering beside him, all the while both were gawking at the destruction the growing un-human horde wrought on the town.

He had stormed the stairs always upwards, going with the flow of soldiers that seemed to traverse the castle in a single direction, until they got in a large circular room, balustrades above encircling it. From there they exited into the cool air of the soon to be night. Giving his rag clad form neither first nor second glance, which served him quite well, soldiers and mages streamed from the keep to fill ranks of their already fighting comrades behind a bulwark of fire which repelled the evil spirits. And while he knew how futile their coordinated attacks and formations would turn out to be he had to give them credit where it was due. Those humans ... and not humans involved in the fighting were clearly of another stock than the superstitious mock warriors that populated his own homeland and would probably have surrendered to blind terror in the face of the supernatural already.

Admittedly, having supernatural means of their own probably helped, a lot.

His thoughts are brutally interrupted.

A thunderclap from the empty heavens rolls across the mountains, few and far are those in Helgen that would have heard it at the best of times, it neared zero people right now due to the current circumstances.

A second sound squall erupts above them.

Had he not just recently suffered under those same storm tones, he would have ignored it just the same. But he didn´t.

And when the dark shadow stretched its wings, turning dusk into night, razor lines lost their lock, turning the smell of fire, sweat and blood into brimstone and putrid grave air, it saved his life.

A gale whips across the city like a winter storm, carrying the half melted snow of the Jeralls within itself. Armored warriors are send tumbling down to the cobblestone floor, wagons overturned and the wall of fire was spread across allies and foes alike.

Violent pandemonium.

"That´s a good answer."

Some reacted faster to the new threat than others, those few didn´t ask questions and simply shot at the new threat. Yet commendable warriors they were, arrows simply harmlessly pinged against dark scales and hastily woven fireballs washed over the same scales like a gentle summer breeze.

The creatures head rears forward, plunging into the mixed crowd and when coming up again an empty void was left. The dead and those souls of the living having vanished within the wide open jaws just as a good chunk of a nearby wall.

The dragon´s nostrils flared, though none present knew how armoured noses could do that if you asked a survivor from back then all would verify such an account, as if catching a especially familiar and revolting stench.

It shouted such that the city wept in terror.

 **"DOVAHKIIN! OBLAAN!"**

Black coils extended in visible rage, a lightning swift tail swipe topples towers right in the middle of town, sending chunks cascading down on the surrounding buildings, burying them under a stone avalanche.

All onlookers are blinded temporarily when fire billowed out on his putrid breath cutting through the darkness. The heat sundered through the rows of buildings, mortals burn away into ashes on the wind while the dark spectres vanish without a trace. In its wake, flames swelled into an ever spreading inferno consuming the town.

hell-spawn vanishing within gaping jaws. He saw the dried blotches of blood and viscera covering the dark scales, in this light the dragon wasn´t black but rather a dark obsidian covered by the blood of his enemies like a long buried sword by rust.

" ** _TIID MORO MAAR!_** A GLORIOUS TIME! A time of BLOOD! Skulls snapping twixt teeth, oozing ichor and marrow, blood gushing like molten metal, rushing down the gullet, hot, man and mer, _naako fahlillod jul_...!"

The dragon trails off into unintelligible rumbles, its enormous maw snapping and frothing with acidic foam. Like an oversized bat he was draped across the keep´s walls and surrounding buildings. Orc-sized claws, ebony swords, carved their might into the comparatively young wood, which strained beyond its breaking point under the destructive god´s presence.

Like the curious moth to the flame, did the evil spirits attracted to Gut´s brand stream towards the colossus having landed above their middle. The black dragon, as massive as he was, was threatened to be buried by hellbound souls in spiritual darkness. Like slime they oozed across his scales harder than silver mithril or greenish orichalcum, the mighty bulwark was no hindrance to their attempt to smother him with numbers as more spectres begat only more of their kin from the repository filled with a maelstrom of once-mortals. The on looking legionnaires, Guts among them, found hope in despair, as while they rejoiced at the dragon who had seared a swath through the town with a single infernal breath seemed to fall before the elusive might brought on by unending numbers of the spectral horde, just what would they be able to do facing such power? Already the black dragon was covered from wingtip to tail end by gnawing ghosts, his defeat evident under the darkness that stretched up to the sky like a mountain that threatened to bury the town whole. And he laughed.

"Ho Ha Ho!"

A black tongue darted out from between ebon lips, scooping up a large helping of anguish and misery out of the writhing mass and into gapping rows of jagged obsidian, clearing up the sky. One by one the burning buildings beneath the drake´s perch vanished, to be replaced with the viscera smeared dragon coils upon scale coils of the World-Eater.

Guts, taking the chance the omnipresent confusion granted him, slips into the stream of panicked humans and flees Helgen through the wide open northern gates and down the dusk coloured mountain slope into the woods, hoping to find shelter among the anonymity granted by the trees from the dragon´s predatory gaze, who he feared might recognize him. With naught but his metal arm, rough-spun tunic, breaches some poor foot wraps and one of the soldier´s short but broad swords he felt himself in no position to tangle with the storm spitting lizard.

Puck, flying overhead the fleeing crowd of citizen, was hot on his trail, like a torchbug on a summer night.

Many escaped from the town condemned to ruination. Some escapees were lead to safety through the evil spirit haunted catacombs by imperial legionnaires and battlemages, others escaped in unruly bands formed among the prison inmates. And some banded together around the group of battle hardened Stormcloaks which had been imprisoned beneath the fort or had used the confusion during the beginning of the execution, which sparked the whole disaster during the last rays of the sun, to escape.

All of them brave men and women, or mer and beast folk.

Brave heroes in their own right.

tbc

* * *

 **AN:**

 **You will have noticed that I´m taking a heavy lore based approach to Skyrim and TES in general. Thus imperial battlemages are suddenly more than spell slingers that kill more of their own men than the charging enemy.**

 **Guts is now finally out of Helgen and shits going to go down in Falkreath.**

 **On TES lore:**

 **The Imga, Prophet/Saint Marukh is credited with the phrase** ** _"All are guilty until they have proven themselves innocent"_** **, a cruel concept according to some in their culture and definitely for us but still a guiding principle in the judicial system of Tamriel.**

 **If a determined human can win against being possessed by the evil spirits summoned to the brand of sacrifice, then so can a Dovah and others ...**


	7. Hearthfire I

**"Oh Shenron! Eternal dragon, I summon you after gathering the legendary dragonballs from every corner of the Earth, grant this one wish to me! Resurrect this fanfiction out of the eternal abyss where it ended up due to indolence and torpor so it may yet enrich the minds of others!"**

 **...**

 **"What do you mean it never died and you can´t remove my laziness? Are you really saying my sloth is stronger than a Namekian-made wannabee god?"**

 **...**

 **"NO! Wait, wait, don´t go! What about my wish, you ill tempered overgrown anaconda?!"**

 **Anyway, sorry for the late update, RL came in between and I had to iron out some problems with the continuity of the storyline.**

 **The words are mine, the worlds are not. I claim nothing but the plot.**

 **Sorry for the lack of updates and my thanks to all readers, reviewers and those who favorited it!**

 **Please continue to R &R!**

* * *

 **Chapter 7: Hearthfire I**

* * *

 _"_ _I've never seen anything quite like that."_

 _\- Lydia_

* * *

"Absolutely astounding! So this Gattss, did I pronounce it directly? A foreign name which I never even heard mentioned in the various legendss of the 4th Era. Helgen naturally isss famousss for being the first location assailed by Alduin himself in mortal memory, but I must admit that apart from that I possesss little knowledge about the Doom of Helgen. Rumors emerged that a powerful necromancer made use of the many deathss and plagued Falkreath for weeks afterwards. Even the Count of Bruma felt threatened and thusss the Knights of the Circle had been dispatched to the region. The Mede Empire´s Legion and the Stormcloaks mutually claimed that they gave help to some of the future heroes and made sure they esscaped. But I could never figure out who exactly, as these accounts vary exceptionally. But I never heard of any such a warrior, what important part did he play in the heroics to come? ..."

The Argonian chronicler was thrilled about this discovery and raved on half coherently, for the true identity of many fabled heroes was still mostly speculation and the matter of much debate as countless rumors circulated all across Tamriel. Over the course of time, many a king, or warlord had either claimed to possess the favor of one of these heroes or even be him.

"Gray Maybe - an integral part of mythdom. Naturally you are correct, the appearance of the World-Eater in the third century goes hand in hand with that of the many heroes shaping history in the following years. Neither can exist without the other after all. You cannot be a dragonslayer without dragons. But without a certain amount of uncertainty, if you do not allow mortal minds to fill out parts of the story themselves, then ... then you would be making history and not legends. With the passing of time, memories become legends, legends become nothing more than mere myths, and even those may be forgotten by the short lived minds of the mortals. Unless ... certain conditions are met."

"Once more I am surprisssed, Milady. I did not know you are well versed in the bardic skillsss." He hisses.

"No surprise there, for I am not. These are the Atmoran´s words. She let drop many a wisdom from her lips. ... As to your query, be aware that while Alduin, the Bane of Kings, the shadow that heralds the Nirn´s end, had returned, he was thought off as a random dragon at first. Word had spread like a wildfire across Skyrim, and even beyond throughout the Mede Empire, all the way to White-Gold and the Dominion´s agents carried it back even faster to Alinor. Everyone wanted to profit from it, and THAT did more to spread their legends than most of their heroics. As for the truth behind the heroes, this too I shall reveal, if you would just deign to continue listening." The unliving woman gently chastised him for interrupting her.

* * *

 **Skyrim, eastern Falkreath Forest, 4th of Hearthfire:**

His hand was still gripping his current weapon, some relatively short but broad and sturdy sword those unknown soldiers wore. That grip was important. Never let go of your weapon. That is the main rule.

"Come on you freaks! There ain´t a single one among you that is going to enjoy this!"

The warrior taunts the evil spirits stirring within every shadow, even as his muscles scream at the endless abuse they had been put through in the last few weeks of constant vigilance and battle. Liquid fire runs through his veins, it burns his arms and makes him grit his teeth and still he moves over the rocky slope with a steady gait while the stones beneath his feet threaten to come lose and take him in a deadly avalanche back into the forest where the hell-spawn awaited him. He had come to the realization that the untamed forest and thick scrub dangerously limited his mobility. A problem the ghosts did not share with him.

"GUUUTS!" A small glowing shape ahead of him, hardly visible against the backdrop of the setting sun, complained to him for halting his steps on the treacherous ground of gravel and snow. Though it´s voice was loud enough, in his ears the sprite´s words were being buried beneath the cacophony of whispers that have now troubled him for no less than a year, yet in recent times they have progressed to worm themselves into every split second of his days.

By now their curses and wants had become repetitive.

 _"You cannot escape us ... sacrifice ... life, precious ..."_

Day after day, hour after hour, they had burrowed themselves through his ear and made themselves a nice little corner in his brain. As if it was burned onto the inside of his skull with every repetition, just beside Casca, Femto, visions of the hell he was destined to fall into after death as one of those marked by demons, and whatever other doom of his reared its ugly head at the current moment.

 _"... always waiting for you ... your flesh, your blood, your bones, ... your heart ..."_

As he had left the murk of the needle-leaf forest behind his retinue of monsters had been reduced to mewling and hissing, and cursing him with every movement of their spectral lips from the mountain´s every shadow as they dare not assault him under the sun´s rays. But they were never far, and the sun was already setting. Threatening to vanish beyond the white, northern mountains on the horizon.

 _"We are always watching you, ... as long as you have that brand ... your anger, your sadness, your pain and your rage, it all belongs to US. Your fear too ... "_

"Guts! We aren´t far know. You should be able to descend after climbing that ridge over there. You´ll be able to rest there. I promise!" His morose thoughts were interrupted by Puck, how the little thing had survived the past few weeks at his side was above the tired warrior though.

"Then lead on, shoefly." He growled, after throwing a last look to the south.

Though he couldn´t see it, as the mountains in between them barred his view, he just knew the burned out husk of the unnamed town he had escaped one more captivity from to be there. No matter how deep the shadows within the forest, or how dense the fog, he always knew where it was, for its location had been burned upon his soul by the same dragon´s breath that had saved him from being consumed by the devils that he had unleashed in that place.

He turned his back to the smouldering ruin. Tired as he was and having the wind´s cold chill dug into his flesh and having lost all feeling in the fingers clamped around the sword he had picked up, he forced his drained and battered body to move once more, as he had done so many times before and would do so many times in the days to come. He was not ready to die yet, not today, not tomorrow either. No pain nor hardship could equal the horror he would have to face in the netherworld.

* * *

The place of respite Puck had promised Guts and led to was a small plateau nestled into the skywards stretching mountain´s side above. To the east he spies a beaten path leading off the elevation and into the forest, with wooden rods interspersed in it to serve as crude steps. The tired warrior had mixed feelings about it being at the edge of the tree-line, as the forest´s gloom was indisputably the domain of his hunters. Even now, kept away by the power of the divine being whose shrine had been erected here, they lingered, not giving up their quarry and instead willing to besiege him all night long.

Though all mundane matters of protection were found wanting in face of the menace from the beyond, mystical powers worked just fine on them. The shrine, towards which Puck had let him after picking up on its ´magical´ aura, like he did so often when they were searching for sacred grounds back in their homeland so he could sleep undisturbed, was one such thing.

With its back to the mountain, a larger than life, green tinged, bronze statue of a warrior and a serpent he was about to impale towered over the plateau from above a stone. Whatever pagan deity he represented neither Guts nor Puck knew. On a lower stone stood a smaller effigy, shaped from purple stone in the likeness of a dagger with an oversized cross guard. Offerings of gold coins, food, weapons and even gems were placed around them. In between them Guts noticed the pale, blood vessel like rivulets of hardened wax, doubtlessly originating from burned down candles, that made the whole rock into an art object.

It seemed not to be a place of the fair folk like Godo´s cave or some of the elder ruins that he had rested in before his battle with the slug like Apostle. Nevertheless, Guts could not deny the shrine´s power, even now the hell-spawn that would like nothing more than to rip him to pieces, chew him thoroughly and dance around in his skin dared not approach. Though, he saw them still;

gnashing fangs and bare bones,

ethereal eyes burning in the dark,

the sounds of a silent army gathering around him,

the glint of rusted weapons wielded by breathless warriors,

half decayed animals, their eyes burning with human intelligence and malice,

and pale, bloodless hands hoisting their possessed corpse bodies across the moss covered ground. All of them ready to strike him down should an opportunity present itself.

They were all kept at bay by the power of the pagan god enshrined here, but whoever this statue represented, his protection seemed not to extent against mortal foes. Between crudely cobbled together benches, corpses littered the ground as if straight out of a picture of a pagan human sacrifice rite. Children, women, the elderly and tall humans in their prime had breathed their last in front of their god´s altar, all equal in death´s embrace. For a moment the ghastly site had served to amuse the dour warrior, as his fairy companion had visibly recoiled from it. Some of the victims were obviously simply farmers or woodsmen, though their wounds were anything but ordinary. Some had been charred as if hit by thousand small lightning bolts, some had been set aflame, clothes burned up, and the remaining had died from holes punched straight through their flesh, yet he found no matching weapon.

 _´Magic´_ a traitorous voice in the back of his mind whispers.

Among the dead only two distinctive garb. One bore a simple cut long orange robe bound by a girdle around the waist and cowl, he may very well have been the first to die, as he looked to have died in mid prayer before the statue.

"Guts, ... what happened here?" The miniscule sprite looked even smaller than normally. His face also showed clear misery as he looked up at him after peeking through one of the holes in a corpse.

"Don´t know yet. But if you stop bothering me I just might figure it out." He grumbled half heartedly. The gnawing worry inside of him for once kept him from lashing out, for he couldn´t help himself but be uneasy. The refuge he had been promised had turned out not so safe after all and he had no interest to come across whatever had killed all these people. They didn´t even show any obvious signs of decay, meaning that their deaths could not have happened that long ago - _´Perhaps refugees from the town?´_ , for while the temperature was low it wasn´t freezing enough to preserve corpses over long periods of time either.

Determined to figure out the reasons for this massacre, he approached the remaining uniquely dressed character. Even sprawled on the ground in black robes with golden trim and with a dagger protruding from the back he saw how tall and slender this person must have been in life. As he turns the body around he notices that the boots and gauntlets were in fact armored while still keeping the same color scheme as the robe. Suddenly curiosity as well as uneasiness overwhelms the cursed warrior, he roughly pulls down the hood hiding the corpses face before recoiling in shock, dropping the gaunt, yellowish head back to the ground.

"Fuck!" He bits out frustrated with himself.

 _´Let´s just hope whatever affliction this guy had it isn´t easily, or at all, contagious.´_ He thought to himself trying to calm down as he starred at the unnatural features of the man? before him.

"Puck, you can´t get sick with shit like this right?" He hurriedly asked the sprite. At the small one´s hesitant nod he continues.

"Then go and rummage through his pockets a bit, let´s see what you can find." He ordered, while he picked himself up and started to work on a fire. He hadn´t had the luxury of a fire ever since he had fled the torture chamber and then left the burning town while being chases by hordes of spirits wearing, and hungering for, man-flesh. For days without end his ghosts had been on his heels and given him no reprieve while chasing him through the perpetually dim forest. As if in cahoots with them, the cloudy sky hadn´t cleared as far back as he remembered, allowing them to keep up their chase all day long. He already had forgotten what a blazing sun felt like on his skin.

Even though he dared not venture far from the shrine, amassing firewood and kindling proved easy enough with the wooden benches and the clothes of the deceased. He had been just trying to set it all on fire with sparks from his sword when Puck came to him with his findings. The pint sized fairy flew over to him with rapidly beating insect wings, in his hands he clutches his loot: some jewelry, a dagger made from some unknown pale golden material, and a folded parchment easily larger than its carrier. Nearly every item must have weighted as much as Puck himself, wings and everything else, but Guts had long since given up wondering about the sprite´s surprising strength. Guts quickly snapped the lightly yellowed and torn page, folded it open and began to read the neat scrawl of some unknown language, which he knew he had no business being able to read, between two read lines of crimson decorations.

* * *

 **Thalmor Orders**

 **by Elenwen**

 _A communique from a Thalmor agent to a subordinate scout._

Agent Sanyon,

In response to your report dated 22nd Morning Star 401, your request for an expeditionary force is hereby denied.

Sanyon, this is the seventh report you have filed this month, and not one of your leads - not one!- has turned up so much as a shred of evidence that a Talos shrine exists in the Lake Ilinalta region. No prisoners. No documents. Nothing!

Our forces are stretched thin enough as it is, and I have better missions - better agents - to assign them to. If you feel so sure of your informant, investigate this yourself. Come back with proof. Or not at all.

By my hand and seal,

Elenwen

* * *

"They were hunting heretics." the flat words escaped him midway through the letter. He had neither finished reading nor finished uttering these words that his mind already had conjured up memories of stakes and pyres with witches wailing atop them in agony.

He glowered, it seemed that even wherever he had been cast away at the moment, disregarding their seeming use of witchcraft, freakish human deformations and whatever else, gods _´and if this shrine´s effect on the ghosts is any indication some of them DO possess powers´_ still continued to meddle in the lives of mortals and have them kill each other in their names.

Distressed he looked up and into the distance. Suddenly he did not find it safe to remain in this place. If these Thalmor in general, or this Elenwen person specifically, noticed their agent had gone missing, would they send others to investigate his whereabouts, or would they just assume Sanyon had gone rogue? Such thoughts plagued the Black Swordsman. The grey sky gave him no answer, _´no surprise there´_ , but it did open his eyes to another problem of his.

Magic might ward off evil spirits, and good steel would safeguard him from mortal foes, but there was no fending off the imminent snowfall and the cold that heralded it.

Already shivering, Guts resumed his struggle with the scavenged wood until he finally cajoled it into catching fire. Once done, refusing to give in to his exhaustion and simply fall down asleep, he grilled a chunk from a deer´s hint legs, which he had severed from a fairly fresh cadaver that had assaulted him and carried with him as provision. This, melted down snow to drink and whatever roots, berries and such that he could find and was positive that they wouldn´t end up poisoning him, had been his only sort of meals for the whole time he had squandered being chased around the forest depths. As such Puck discovering this warded place beyond doubt was a stroke of luck and he intended to spend some long overdue recuperation time here. But first, he thought as he tore into the crisp meat, he would have to have a long overdue talk with his faerie.

 _´And since when has the little critter become "mine"?´_

"Puck, ..." He addressed the sprite munching cutely on his own slice of meat. "... what do you know about where we are? My torturer only claimed that we hail from another continent. Other than that he was sparse on the details." Absentmindedly he touched his sword´s handle, making sure it was in reach.

"Mmh. ... I see, I see. HA! So the great Black Swordsman can´t even find his way without little ol´me!?" He cheered after some faked thinking.

 _´Let him have his little victory, with the way he gets into trouble I´ll pay him back soon enough.´_

"I can find my way just fine, but I would rather have some extra information about my goal."

Unperturbed by the warrior´s rebuttal, Puck struck a pose for his lecture, furtively attempting to appear imposing. "How wise of you my dear pupil. Then I shall impart all my gathered knowledge onto you; we are on the continent of Tamriel and specifically in the land of Skyrim. It´s cold, wet, dreary and high up in the north if the climate is any indication. ... Oh, and the red clad soldiers are working for some empire or another."

With a deep sight Guts berated himself for believing Puck would impart him with some useful information. He tensed for a moment, seriously playing with the thought to gag the pixie from now on. But as fate would have it, unkind to him as always, the sprite was the only other being that could help him understand and escape from his newest predicament - and he himself had hit a wall trying to figure things out by himself already. _´Will I really_ _be able to find the freedom from my curse like the giant bird has said? What does he/she? gain from dangling it in front of me and having me travel there by myself? Or could there be another reason why she didn´t just bring me there?´_

"Just WHAT THE HELL happened back there?" He thought out loud, trying to rub his face with the hand he didn´t hold his meal with and only belatedly noticing he only has an iron prosthetic there instead of a fully functional hand.

"Well as I understand it you were absolutely destroyed by those five emos in the maze world. Then a flying lizard ate us and we were doctored on by some creepy grey aliens. Which is probably why we can speak the local language without problem. We then somehow ended up in a prison on another continent and were viciously tortured. Then business as usual ... with the addition of another flying lizard. Any questions?"

"It´s not that simple you overgrown torchbug!" He shoots back agitated. "We were deep in the spirit world, I admit that it was about to dissolve, but still how did we end up in another continent from there? And then there are the warlocks, dragons and whatever ..." He paused a moment searching for the right word. "... freaks those and the other not human looking people are." He finished while gesturing to the yellow skinned and pointy eared male. Different from the other corpses, whom Guts had robbed of their clothes to protect himself from the cold, he was still clothed in his black and gold robes, for Guts refused to touch him, fearing to catch whatever affliction he had.

"Ehh, keep your wits about you, bozo. Come on, you need to be a bit more gutsy!" Puck beamed at the pun, the small thing sat cross-legged in the hoarfrost covered grass and beamed up at him in badly concealed mirth. "Don´t be so provincial either. It´s true, sorcerers are a rarity back home, but they exist." He continued his jest. "Hmmm, if they are any different it might be because the air is different here." He finished by musing half to himself.

"Sorcerers?! I met many a wood´s witch, warlock while travelling. They were all damned charlatans without exception." Guts rebuked Puck´s claim unconvinced.

"As I said, the air here is different. It´s as if the whole land here is like you." Puck said innocently enough.

"The hell you mean? Branded?" Guts asked astonished while chewing. Irritated he noticed that the night had crept up on them and blackened the sky. He searched the perimeter for any evil spirit that may try to prey on them now that they must be emboldened by the darkness of the night. His mood soared when he found none, it seemed the protection of this pagan deity were holding up.

"No, the brand has quite a distinctive feel to it. This land is more like my home island of Elfhelm, richer, more vibrant. It could also be the reason why some of these people have features more similar to faeries than humans." The sprite trails off, unsure of himself.

 _´...faerie/human halfbloods!? ... on the edge between the transient world and the realm of the dead ...´_ The Skull Knight´s words rose from the depths of Guts´ memory and the rising feeling of dread, whose roots he could not place, crushed his previous euphoria. "Elfhelm?" He asked, surprised as well as hoping to banish the rising feeling. Just how would these lands differ from what he was familiar with?

"Yeah, my home. A wonderful place ..." Puck gesticulates grandly and was about to throw himself into a longwinded description of some sort of paradise if his blissful face was anything to go by. Guts, at first willing to just blend him out as he droned on and on, his meal finished, huddled in whatever usable rags he had pilfered off the dead and hunkered down for a hopefully uninterrupted sleep. The worst of his injuries had already been treated with fairy dust during their travel whenever it was safe, come morning he would have the sprite take another look at his wounds before setting out. Where he would go from there he did not know yet. Other than the mountains in the distance the only recognizable landmarks he knew off in the region was the endless green hell he had been stumbling through ever since he had escaped imprisonment. Dejected, he leaned back against the shrine´s stone and gazed upon the foreign night-sky. There unknown star constellations shone like pinprick sized windows into another, more luminous world and the moon - _moons?!_

"Puck. ... Puck!"

"Huh? What is it Guts, why´re you not calling me insect or such?"

"Well if you want me to. But first, look up." The sprite followed Guts eye and found what had horrified him. There, above them in the inky darkness of the night, among unfamiliar stars hovered a familiar pale moon. But just beside it was a larger, blood red disc that looked as if threatening them to fall down and crush them all.

"Another moon, they said. It´ll be fun, they said. Wait! It´s not really getting any bigger, right?! That must mean it´s not falling on our heads just yet, right?!" Puck, flabbergasted, was almost chirping and flying around like a frightened, caged bird.

"Enough of your jokes. ´Another continent´?" Guts heaved, nearly panicked at something he could hardly ever imagine and not even having a threat to his life to concentrate on instead.

"Thrice damned spawns of hell! This isn´t anything petty like that. Curses! Those whoresons! What´s next, talking trees?!"

To be continued...

* * *

 **AN:**

 **Obviously the Skyrim I portray is far larger then it is ingame, so do not be surprised if locations are described a bit differently than they are ingame. The same goes for population numbers, distances as well as the time Guts will need to travel from one place to another, which is how he could spend weeks running around eastern Falkreath hold.**


End file.
